A psychiatrist of Indian origin residing in London has been recently sentenced to six years in prison by a UK court for his involvement in operating a child sex abuse website.
Dr. Kabir Garg, 33, from Lewisham in South-east London, was identified by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) as one of the administrators of “The Annex” website, which had more than 90,000 members worldwide.
On June 23, Garg was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court and will be on the Sex Offenders Register for life. Earlier this year, in January, he pleaded guilty to eight charges, including facilitating the sexual exploitation of children, three counts each of creating and distributing indecent images of children, and possession of prohibited images.
In a statement, Adam Priestley of the NCA described “Garg was involved in facilitating child sexual abuse on a significant scale. He used the dark web to access a global community of paedophiles sharing and discussing horrific crimes against children.”
According to an official, “There are hundreds of thousands of members of such sites on the dark web, but few of them are prepared to commit to being a member of staff, which involves dedicating a lot of time for no payment.”
In a statement issued on Monday, the UK’s National Crime Agency revealed “Officers arrested Garg at his flat in Lewisham in November 2022 as part of a coordinated operation with international partners, at a time when the site was open on his laptop with Garg logged into his moderator account.”
The authorities also arrested Matthew Smith, 34, last year in connection with alleged child sexual abuse in India. During the arrest, thousands of images and videos depicting child sexual exploitation were seized as evidence.
Authorities discovered that Dr. Kabir Garg possessed more than 7,000 indecent images and videos, along with various medical journal articles that he had obtained in his capacity as a psychiatrist. One of the journals was titled “A Study on Child Abuse India.”
During the investigation, it was revealed that “The Annex,” which is no longer operational, functioned in a manner similar to a company and had a team of approximately 30 administrators.
According to the National Crime Agency (NCA), Garg initially joined the website as a member but worked his way up to becoming a trusted individual who was invited to serve as a moderator. As a moderator, his responsibilities included enforcing site rules and removing members who failed to comply with them.
