SAN DIEGO — Further details have emerged in the past week about the capture and arrest of GirlsDoPorn owner Michael Pratt in Spain in December 2022, following his extradition to the U.S. last month.
As XBIZ reported, Pratt made his first appearance in federal court on March 19.
Pratt was captured in Madrid in 2022 after having been a fugitive since leaving the U.S. in 2019, and on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list since 2021.
His capture was requested by U.S. authorities through an Interpol Red Notice in a 19-count indictment for “sex trafficking, production of child pornography, sex trafficking of a minor, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments in connection with the operation of the GirlsDoPorn adult website.”
At the time of his court appearance, FBI San Diego Special Agent in Charge Stacey Moy said that Pratt’s arrest and extradition reflected “a great collaboration among multiple agencies, both in the United States and Spain who were dedicated to seeking justice for the young women he allegedly victimized. This large, internationally coordinated effort could not have been successful without support from our law enforcement partners in Spain, the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Department of Justice, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
An article about the extradition, published last week by the Los Angeles Times, included an interview with Brian Holm, the attorney for Pratt’s alleged victims.
According to the Times, Holm said a team of “amateur sleuths” helped authorities trace Pratt to a Barcelona mailing address.
“We got tired of waiting for him to be found,” Holm told the paper.
But sources familiar with the case and Pratt’s capture contradicted the Times report, calling it unlikely that Holm referred to “amateur sleuths,” which would discredit the FBI’s version of events.
The same sources pointed XBIZ to the description of Pratt’s capture published by Spanish newspaper El Español in December 2022, in an article that has not been quoted in English-language coverage until now.
Teamwork by Private Investigators and U.S., Spain Law Enforcement
El Español reported that Pratt was tracked by the Group of Fugitive Location of the Spanish National Police, which found him registered at a hotel on Madrid’s central Gran Vía under one of several fake identities he used during his years on the lam.
“Agents detected Pratt was to arrive at the hotel in the morning, using one of three usual fake identities. The arrest happened early in the afternoon. Intelligence officers with the police worked for more than a year trying to track him, and he was one of the outfit’s top targets.”
El Español noted that Pratt’s arrest was the first ever for someone on the FBI’s notorious Ten Most Wanted list, which in the past has included extremely high-profile criminals such as Osama Bin Laden.
Once the Spanish authorities received the information from their U.S. counterparts, they initially tracked Pratt to a Barcelona address — but due to several complications, an arrest could not be made at the time, the newspaper reported.
At that point, several U.S. private investigators traveled to Spain and teamed up with American and Spanish law enforcement agents to follow Pratt’s trail from Barcelona to Madrid, resulting in the December 2022 arrest.
It is most likely that Holm was referring to these private investigators when speaking with the Times, which then incorrectly relabeled them as “amateur sleuths.”
As of Thursday afternoon, six days after publication, the Times had not issued a correction.
Pratt entered a “not guilty” plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel E. Butcher. A motion hearing/trial setting has been scheduled for April 19.
For XBIZ’s ongoing coverage of the GirlsDoPorn case, click here.