• Mugshot removal is a controversial industry that involves websites that collect and publish mugshots of people who have been arrested, and then charge them fees to remove the images from their sites.
• Many people who have been arrested, even if they were never charged or convicted, face difficulties in finding jobs, housing, or relationships because of their mugshots appearing online. Some people also experience harassment, discrimination, or humiliation because of their mugshots.
• Some websites, such as Mugshots.com, have been accused of extortion, money laundering, and identity theft for exploiting people’s mugshots and demanding hundreds or thousands of dollars for removal. The owners of Mugshots.com were arrested in 2018 but the site is still operating and offering free removal only for those who can prove their innocence or expungement.
• There have been some efforts to regulate or restrict the mugshot publishing industry, such as laws that prohibit charging fees for removal or require websites to update or delete records upon request. However, these laws vary by state and are often difficult to enforce or challenge in court.
• Some activists and advocates have also campaigned against the mugshot publishing industry, such as by exposing the identities and locations of the website owners, creating alternative websites that offer free removal, or urging search engines like Google to stop displaying mugshots in their results.

Who would have thought we would live in a day where we could have extortion and online blackmail so rampant as it is with businesses ruining peoples lives? It is happening, Folks. What happens is someone is arrested from a warrant (even when turning themselves in) or any other arrest and it is posted on the county or city jail sites which is public information. The photos are normally just up for a limited time such as 24 hours so the family or friends may bail them out of jail but the information may still be there. Bots come along and scrape these jail sites and then post the photo and all the information then put up links and heavily SEO (Search engine optimization) words and URL’s to include their names even including a fake newsstory to make it more real for Google and search engines. You might think this is a great thing because it makes “criminals” pay for what they did and will teach them a lesson. Just wait until it happens to you and you may also know that it happens without being found guilty. These are basically innocent people because they have not been to court yet and not even had a chance to enter a plea in most cases. Just because you are arrested does not mean guilt.

It almost reminds me of the book “Scarlet Letter” where the lady had to wear an adultery letter on her in public and be bullied and hated among the community. You have got to wonder how many suicides have been contributed to these mugshot sites? Why aren’t these sites being sued or outlawed by our government or unindexed by Google, Yahoo, and Bing?

Most of these sites I noticed are actually part of the same big underlying mafia type extortion ring. After an investigation we found there is probably one big ring leader of these mug shot sites and it is most likely an SEO company based in the US but appearing to be overseas. They will charge $499 or $399 for ONE mugshot removal. Although you will not normally see the actual website admit it removes anything you will see an advertisement then click on that to another site that leads you to the payment and some sort of terms you have to agree to which also seem a bit suspicious.

It’s a big political and social win to be able to embarrass someone else or bully them online like this but it’s morally wrong. This should not be allowed and should be stopped. Our privacy has gotten so out of control that we have to inch of it left. I can understand freedom of speech and public data but not on these sites that are posting advertising and making money from other peoples lives. Possibly ruining lives, getting people fired from jobs, causing suicides, breaking up families and marriages, and sending people into bankruptcy.

One of the big companies we found to remove mugshots was Internet Reputation. You will see them listed on ads on Arrests.org and Mugshots.com two of the main propagators of arrest photos. We looked up some backlinks to one mugshot site in Texas and found ElPasoMugs.com, AustinMugs.com, MugshotsDallas.com, among others. These are CLEARLY owned by the same people but the whois information behind the domain name is private because they are hiding but want to get your photo out in public. To get these removed you have to use a service such as Internet Reputation they all state:

I want a mugshot deleted immediately. Can I pay you to expedite the process?
We are asked this several times a day and unfortunately it is not an option. There are numerous 3rd party “Mugshot Removal” companies that claim that they can delete information from our sites, but they simply charge you for what you could do for free (see above) and you still end up waiting a month for something to get done. That said, the only companies that would have any success in removing a mugshot within 24 hours are MugshotRemovalCompany.com and InternetReputation.com.

Private citizens who are not celebrities or politicians (or family members of them) shouldn’t have to be in the spotlight. Pictured: Congress activist Lauren Boebert and her son Tyler. His mugshot could be found on Colorado #mugshot searches but as a public figure the press is obligated to publish his arrest.

We called the Mugshotremovalcompany.com and guess who answered? They answered the phone as InternetReputation.com. We asked how much to remove one and they quoted us at $199 over the phone. The email receipt actually had a shocking $499 instead. They pretty much have you by the balls on this I suppose so what are you supposed to do if you want the tacky and embarrassing jail photo removed? It’s comparable to trying to do business with a drug dealer or member of the mafia. Are you really going to talk the price down on something that could make you commit suicide, lose your job, or ban you from the church?

On the Q&A on RemoveFloridaArrest.org it states this:
But isn’t this site Arrests.org?
No. We are NOT Arrests.org. We are not owned by a mugshot website. We are an Independent Removal Company and we charge for Removals. We just happen to have extremely intelligent people in our SEO marketing department that figured out that by looking like Arrests.org and having a name similar to Arrests.org we would get the most traffic.

For one anyone can remove a cache from Google for free here. It really is not a necessary thing to do mainly because Big G crawls the site often and it happens naturally if it is removed completely. They claim to be an independent removal company but I will bet money they have a relationship like the Taxi’s and shady bar owner scams in Brazil. A scam is a scam but this is worse its full out extortion and ruining peoples lives.

They seems to have a sales staff at the Internet Reputation site that will bombard you with emails after you contact them. This has turned into big business for those with alleged DWI’s, animal cruelty, theft, domestic violence, trespassing, resisting arrest, sexual assault, marijuana possession, arson and the list goes on and on. The databases of these sites online have just about got at least one person in your family, a few in your church, school, and possibly you next. We already know the prison system is big business but this online mug shot marketing has to be one of the most lucrative we have seen in a long time.

The states that rank the highest pages for Arrests.org are Florida and North Carolina. if you will notice in the URL at the top when you click on a persons arrest bio you will see their name clearly in the URL. This is to rank high in Google. One example is florida.arrests.org/Arrests/Brent_Detelich_3192565. You know they are purposely wanting to make sure you see this before anything else that comes up for his name related to their business or personal life. They want to make sure their reputation is ruined bad enough so they will pay big money to have these removed which could cost towards $5,000 to get all these sites that could really be owned by the same company or people.

According to WHOIS records report by a Scribd post floridamugshots.us which redirected to arrests.org is owned by CRUNCHLINE LLC. Floridamugshots.us
was listed as “Robert Wiggen” as the owner. Also according to this report CRUNCHLINE LLC’s paperwork named “Robert Wiggen” and “James CWiggen” as managers of the business. The registering agent listed as DanKeen of Northwest Registered Agent LLC. The contact information that can be gleaned from CRUNCHLINE LLC’s paperwork is as follows based on the report:
nfo@crunchline.com 813-658-5137
PO BOX 732
FLAGLER BEACH FL 32136
WIGGEN, JAMES C
7530 CRANES CREEK CT.
WINTER PARK, FL 32792

All sites hosted at this IP were arrests.org, crunchline.com, floridamugshots.us, Aagilelegalmarketing.com0 according to an article on Scribd.com. Posted on Ripoffreport.com: “Robert Wiggen and Cody Wiggen now operating georgia.arrests.org. I would hate to have this complaint go cold. It seems the cash-flow in Florida is thinning for Wiggen’s mugshot removal extortion scam. Just think with 50 to 51 states in the USA, how Wiggen can continue to rip off victims of police/justice information mis-management.” [Pictured above]

Revenge Porn Extortionist Gets Prison Sentence
Recently the ‘Revenge Porn’ extortionist got sentenced to 18 years. We are hoping the same happens to the mugshot business to sites that are similar to Jailbase.com. Victims of a revenge porn-extortion scheme got some revenge of their own on Friday, when a California man who ran the operation was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Kevin Christopher Bollaert, 27, faced a maximum of 23 years in prison after his February conviction on six counts of extortion. All charges stemmed from his operation of the now-defunct UGotPosted.com, which allowed jilted lovers and spouses to upload 10,170 nude or explicit images along with personal information including the subjects’ names, cities of residence and links to social media profiles. While the Jailbase and Mugshots of every state do not post nude photos they are still posting stuff that can haunt people forever which could cause someone to take their own life. How are they not being sued and held in criminal court?

Similar to the Mugshot sites the victims of UGotPosted paid as much as $350 to have the images removed. Authorities said PayPal records indicated Bollaert received $30,000 in extortion payments during the six months immediately preceding his arrest.

Revenge porn is considered a misdemeanor under California state law so prosecutors chose instead to focus on 31 felony allegations including conspiracy, identity theft and extortion.