Two of the biggest credit card companies in the U.S. are being accused of facilitating payments to access child pornography and sex trafficking on the popular site OnlyFans. The allegations come from a whistleblower complaint filed in 2023.
In the complaint filed with the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Unit, a whistleblower claims that Mastercard and Visa failed to prevent their networks from facilitating payments for child sexual abuse material and sex trafficking on OnlyFans, Reuters reports.
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The whistleblower alleges that the two major card companies had been aware that their networks were being used to pay for illegal content on the site since 2021 but allegedly ignored the illicit revenue.
According to Reuters, the whistleblower filed the complaint in 2023. Federal agents contacted Mastercard and Visa in 2021 and 2022, warning the companies about the unlawful content.
The whistleblower, who is also said to have assisted with a 2022 anti-trafficking study, found a “high volume” of OnlyFans accounts linked to child pornography or sex trafficking. The study was shared with the card companies.
The complaint argues that by processing payments for OnlyFans, Mastercard and Visa “willfully failed” to uphold anti-money laundering rules under the Bank Secrecy Act, prompting the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and two other federal agencies to take action.
The whistleblower spoke with Reuters anonymously and stated that federal agencies never contacted him to discuss the complaint.
A Visa spokesperson told Reuters they will remove any financial institutions or merchants failing to meet its “robust compliance requirements.” The spokesperson added that Visa employs top-tier controls to prevent, detect and address illegal activity.
A Mastercard spokesperson said the company holds all users to high standards and works with partners to address illegal activity. They denied that Mastercard had “failed” to maintain effective anti-money laundering programs.
In December, a Canadian Open-Source Intelligence Centre investigator told authorities OnlyFans had dozens of accounts containing child sexual abuse material.
The site responded by stating it has a zero-tolerance approach to such material.
