An American man is arrested in Indonesia for allegedly selling porn videos on social media

The central business district skyline is seen during the dusk in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, April 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

JAKARTA, Indonesia — An American man was arrested in Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali for allegedly selling pornographic videos through social media, officials said Wednesday.

Taylor Kirby Whitemore was arrested on March 25 by the Intelligence and Immigration Enforcement team when he was about to leave Bali’s Ngurah Rai international airport for Malaysia, immigration official Yuldi Yusman said.

Authorities said Whitemore was linked to accounts on X and the Telegram messaging app that promoted and processed transactions for paid pornographic content, Yusman said.

He was moved to a detention center in the capital, Jakarta, on May 16, for further investigation.

The case went unreported until authorities on Wednesday presented Whitemore at a news conference in Jakarta. Wearing an orange vest and a mask and with his hands tied, he did not make any statement.

“The immigration office had successfully identified Whitemore, a tourist visa holder who stayed in Bali,” Yusman told a news conference.

He said an investigation conducted by the digital forensic team at his office since Feb. 17, using face recognition technology integrated with the immigration system, has led to Whitemore’s arrest.

“We strongly suspected that the promoted videos he produced were taken in Indonesia,” Yusman told reporters, adding that Whitemore has violated Indonesia’s Pornography Law and Immigration. He faces up to five years in prison and a fine up to 500 million rupiah ($30,540) if found guilty.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, has strict laws against narcotics and the production and distribution of pornography. Authorities in 2019 arrested a British man in Bali after he sold explicit videos of himself online to fund an extravagant lifestyle on the island.

Niniek Karmini, The Associated Press