Castaneda was denied bond at this time and will continue imprisoned until his next court appearance.
Castaneda was arrested under a Homeland Security Investigation on Wednesday April 18,2018 in Eagle Pass, Texas and remanded to the Del Rio Federal GEO corrections facility under felony charges.
Castaneda was arrested after Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Eagle Pass received a lead from the HSI Exploitation Unit in Phoenix, Arizona in reference to an individual purchasing passwords to unlock encrypted files containing still images and videos depicting child pornography from an internet website. Investigations into the website activities related to distribution of child pornography revealed that an individual interested in downloading child pornography must receive an invitation to the website. After receiving the invitation, the individual would set up a user name and password with the website and select which files to purchase. After making payment to the website, an email containing the password to access the encrypted files would be sent to the user's email account. The user would then download the encrypted file from the website, and utilize the purchase passwords to access the child pornography.
Agents Identified the individual engaging in such conduct as David John Castaneda II.The investigation revealed that the Internet Protocol (IP)
Address that Castaneda used to access the website, returned to his residence in Eagle Pass, Texas. On approximately two occasions between February 16, 2017 and March 3, 2017, the passwords to access the files containing child pornography were sent to Castaneda's email address, and a payment processing account associated with Castaneda was billed for the purchase of the passwords. Castaneda's credit card was associated with the payment processor that completed the transaction.
During the course of the investigation, agents conducted an interview with Castaneda in a Post-
Miranda interview, Castaneda freely and voluntarily admitted to purchasing the passwords to access material containing child pornography.Castaneda also admitted to viewing images of exploitative material. Agents with HSI reviewed the sample still images from the files and confirmed that the images contain material depicting child pornography, including images depicting prepubescent minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.