Fresno Man Used Popular Social Media Apps To Produce, Receive Child Porn

FRESNO (CBS13) – A Fresno man pleaded guilty to using apps like Snapchat, Kik and Musical.ly to communicate with several children for the purpose of having them create and send him pornographic images, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release on Thursday.

Jacob Blanco, 28, pleaded guilty to five counts of producing child porn and one count of receiving child porn.

The DOJ said authorities searched Blanco's digital media and found that "he had successfully persuaded and coerced multiple minors to produce sexually explicit material."

Based off Blanco's admissions, he communicated with at least 50 children, and his activities initially came to light in or around March 2017, officials said. The DOJ said the parents of a then six-year-old discovered the child was contacted by Blanco on the popular social media application Musical.ly (now TikTok), who requested the child create and send sexually explicit images.

Authorities said Blanco pretended to be a modeling agent or another child while communicating with these children on several social media applications, including the aforementioned ones.

Blanco's sentencing is set for October 9.