A huge internet pornography empire set up by a group of Edinburgh University graduates who boasted of their ability to evade the law has been closed down by the authorities in Antigua.
A week after The Observer revealed how they were exploiting Antigua's offshore banking regime to rake in a fortune from a stable of slickly produced hardcore sex sites, the founders of the Rhino Corporation have been deported as undesirables by the Caribbean island's government, which is now moving to forfeit the company's considerable, ill-gotten assets.
For almost three years, the three men and one woman behind Rhino stayed one step ahead of the law as they steadily grew to become major players in the overcrowded world of internet pornography.
With all their profits being paid into Rhino's offshore bank accounts in Antigua, the group carried out all their day-to-day financial transactions using company credit cards in an attempt to keep police off their scent. They had also changed their names, operating under the assumed identities of Amber, Jason and Mark Rhino, and DragonKing.
The Observer can now reveal their real identities. Amber is Rebecca Thomas from Henley-on-Thames; Jason Rhino is Jason Freeman, from Amersham; and Mark Rhino is Mark Corti, from London.
The three met at Edinburgh and, after graduating, set up Rhino in 1998 along with the fourth member, DragonKing, an American national called Vincent Head. He has now been returned to the United States where he faces prosecution for criminal offences carried out in New York. In the wake of The Observer's disclosures last week, it emerged that he was wanted by the US authorities on felony charges and was the subject of an extradition warrant.
The three Britons will not face further prosecution in Antigua after being deported, but police in this country may be keen to talk to them. When Rhino went into business in Edinburgh, it tried to get round Britain's strict obscenity laws by using webspace rented from US hosting companies specialising in porn sites.
The operation came to the attention of police, however, and the group was put under surveillance. Detectives believed they were posting pornographic material on to their sites from this country, which would have come under the criminal offence of handling and distributing obscene materials. But the group ducked out of sight and shifted their operation to Antigua just before Edinburgh officers moved in. In a move which infuriated police, the four placed a picture of themselves lounging on a white Caribbean beach, beers in hand, on one of their promotional sites.
As a result, the sudden and spectacular demise of Rhino has delighted British officers. 'This is a spectacular result,' one senior source told The Observer. 'They thought they could make us look like monkeys and they thought they had made themselves invincible and now they are finding out how wrong they were.'
The Antiguan authorities are now in the process of closing down Rhino's stable of 10 hardcore sites, whose titles ranged from 'Wives Exposed' to 'Dirty Teens', a site run by Thomas that specialised in material involving young girls. The company also made a fortune, under the name Flash Cash, by sponsoring smaller porn operations to get their users to subscribe to Rhino's sites.
Rhino was so proud of its ability to exploit Antigua's offshore laws that it recently launched an internet service for budding entrepreneurs hoping to follow in its footsteps. For a fee of £1,700, offshore corporations could be set up online from anywhere in the world.
To promote the service, Rhino painted a picture of Antigua as a haven for tax evaders and pornographers. It claimed that the island's regulatory regime was so lax that owners of offshore companies could mask their identities, move assets around under the noses of the tax authorities and render themselves virtually immune from prosecution. It also claimed that the island did not have stringent obscenity laws. But the misleading and inaccurate claims incensed Antigua's government, and ultimately led to the Rhino empire's downfall. Investigators from the Financial Intelligence Unit, set up to prevent offshore companies being used for international moneylaundering, placed Rhino under surveillance before raiding its base in the capital St John's early last Tuesday.
In a letter to The Observer, Ron Sanders, Antigua's high commissioner in London, said Rhino's 'highly inaccurate' information had damaged the reputation of the island's offshore industry.
'Owners of offshore corporations cannot mask their identities and are not immune from prosecution. Both our International Business Corporation Act and our Money Laundering (Prevention) Act require the beneficial owners of corporations to be verified and records of their identity maintained.
'Successful prosecutions have been carried out on several offshore corporations that have been involved in fraud and there has been full co-operation with the UK, the USA, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada in bringing criminals to justice.'
He added: 'While Rhino also claimed that we do not have stringent obscenity laws, they are now painfully aware of the inaccuracy of their information... Effectively, Rhino Corporation's websites are no longer operational and their business licence will be revoked under our laws pending further legal action.'
Trueheart Smith, the island's police commissioner, said: 'We are very, very glad to see the back of these people. They are not the type of people we want on the island and we hope the British authorities will consider taking action against them.'
