Marcus Carlo Cappo

Marcus Cappo as been sentenced to four years in jail after pleading guilty to paying victims (aged between 14 and 16 years old) money for explicit images and recordings before circulating some of the content with others.

After further investigation, 179 videos was on Marcus Cappo's phone which included 13-year-old children performing sexual acts and 1,852 child exploitation images were found on his computer depicting children under the age of 13 years.

I don't know about you but when I was his age, I didn't have $350+ spare to spend on a tit picture, all my money went to rent with the spare going to booze on a night out. And here is Marcus offering up $5,000 for sex...where does this money come from?

Who are the Cappo's?

The Cappo family's business, Thomas Cappo Seafoods, has been a cornerstone of the South Australian seafood industry for over a century. Established in 1919, it has grown from a local seafood provider at the Adelaide Markets to an internationally recognised brand.

Thomas Foods International (TFI), which is one of Australia's largest privately-owned meat processing companies. TFI, established in 1988, complements the seafood business by providing a variety of high-quality meats and fresh produce to consumers in over 85 countries​.

It is a solid and profitable business which is still growing, lucky for Marcus as he struggled at school and this was a nice cushion to fall back on. At he age of 17 Marcus finished home schooling and went full-time with the family business.

Marcus Cappo's History:

Marcus was 20 at the time of his sentencing, prior to this charge, he had no offending history.

As a child, he was diagnosed with a verbal language disorder, along with auditory, memory, and processing difficulties. Reports say that this impacted his education and social interactions. At school, he faced bullying and developed social anxiety, leading you to leave formal schooling at the beginning of year 7.

Who didn't get bullied and had social anxiety at school? It is basically in the T&C's of every school.

At the age of 11, he began receiving psychological support and transitioned to homeschooling. Over the next five years, he worked to complete your his education, finishing at year 10 at the age of 17.

Following homeschooling, he started working full-time in his family's business.

Even though he was young and cashed up, his adolescent years seemed to be spent in isolation, spending an extensive amount of time on his computer.

Let's take a looking into this time at the computer...

Socials:

Instagram: @marcuspriv112

SnapChat: m8rcuc_c

Marcus Cappo's Offending

The following is a summary of Marcus's sentencing on Friday, 26 JUL 24 at Adelaide District Court.

During about an eight month period, when Marcus was 18-19 years old, he went hard on social media, flashing cash to school girls, paying for nude photographs and threatening to leak them once he had them. In fact, this was is undoing as police were notified after a sexually explicit video of one of his victims was sent around her school.

The First Victim:

Around late August and early September 2021, Marcus sent a random friend request to his first victim on Instagram, which was accepted. He jumped straight into the DMs and asked if she wanted money? She said yes (who doesn't want money?). They added each other on SnapChat and the communications continued.

She made it clear to you that she had only just turned 15. With this information, you asked her to send multiple pictures of her breasts for a payout of $60. The catch was that she had to keep her face visible in the topless pictures.

He was not successful in getting the face in the picture but he did get 3 topless pictures. He transferred $45 to her account, took screenshots of the pictures and then transferred another $100 into her account.

In December 2021, after trying offences with other victims, Marcus returned back to victim 1 asking for more nudes from her. She sent another photo of herself naked and Marcus paid $100. Then again in February 2022, he asked her to recreate a video of a girl dancing but he asked victim 1 to be naked. She did and he paid $310 for it.

These request continued for two to three months but she started declining sending which made her cop a slew of angry messages from Marcus.

Second Victim:

Victim number 2 already knew Marcus from a mutual friend, she was 16 when Marcus added her on SnapChat. He was straight down to business, offering her money in exchange for nudes.

She sent pictures of her breast for a payment of $450. Over a period of time, Marcus made multiple request for nude photos and videos, he would send content to her and asked her to replicate it. He was paying between $30 and $300 for the photos and videos. This content was saved to his camera roll (phone gallery).

Although, if he wasn't happy with what he was sent, he would not pay and ask for more. When victim 2 wanted to put a stop to this and said she would not send anymore, Marcus black mailed her by threatening to leak and expose the nudes she had sent.

This gives us a peak into his mentally at the time, he found a way to feel power, he could use money to target young girls who need money. Then use nudes for leverage to try gain more control over the victims.

Third Victim:

Victim 1 told victim 3 about Marcus, telling her that you can make some money from him over SnapChat. In November 2021, Marcus and victim 3 started communication on SnapChat.

She was 14 years old at the time.

She sent Marcus a photo of her exposed butt in exchange for $250. Marcus then continued to ping her for 3 months asking for nudes. She would continue to decline, saying she is busy. Marcus would try to make her doubt her self worth, saying his other victim were better then her...she still declined.

On 8 March 2022 he sent messages asking how old the third victim was and she told him she was turning 17 in a month and a bit. He then asked how much it could cost to have sex with her. She asked how much would he pay. Marcus offered to pay her $5,000 for sex.

There was no evidence that the two met in person.

Forth Victim:

Victim number 4 started communicating with Marcus on SnapChat and Instagram in November 2021. She told Marcus that she was 16, however, she was 15.

After about a week of back and forth, he ended up asking her for naked pictures in exchange for money. She sent him several pictures of herself in her underwear for a total of $100.

Fifth Victim:

Early December 2021 he added the fifth victim to SnapChat, who was 16 years old. For $280 she sent him naked photos and sexually explicit videos.

Between December 2021 and February 2022, Marcus kept paying for nudes for amounts ranging between $10 and $280. These images and videos were located on his phone after his arrest.

On 07 January 2022, Marcus asked her to stay the night at his place, followed by the acronym “LOL”. He provided her his address and said he would pay $10,000 for 10 acts of intercourse. Although they talked about it, there was no evidence that the two met in person.

Sixth Victim:

In late January 2022, Marcus found another victim. The sixth victim was 14 years old and she believes that she told him her age. Like all the others, he started asking for naked images and naked dance videos.

He paid her $220, and she sent him multiple images and videos. Including images of her wearing underwear that he picked out. Some of these images was found on his phone after his arrest.

Seventh Victim:

On 28 March 2022, the seventh victim added him to Snapchat after being told by the sixth victim that he pay's money for naked images.  She was 15 years old. 

She sent him a photo of herself in a bra and shorts but quickly deleted it. Marcus was unable to save this images, so he told her that he will not pay. This caused her to resend the image and she received $50 from Marcus.

His Undoing:

Around March or April 2022, Marcus sent the second victim a short video of the first victim bending over a bed in her underwear exposing her buttocks. After sending it, you asked the second victim to recreate that video and send it to him.

She declined.

He then sent the same video to the third victim, asking her to recreate the image. We can see the pattern here.

She also declined.

After sending the first victims video to the third victim, the video ended up circulating around the first victims school and was viewed by her peers.

In April 2022, he kept asking the first victim for new videos after three refusals, she did sent a video which exposed herself, which he paid her $300 for. He then kept sending her messages but she stopped opening them.

In May 2022, again, he sent the first victims video to the third victim, asking her to recreated it for him. Again, she declined.

In June 2022, he sent another video of the first victim to the third victim, asking her to recreate the videos and she refused. Because he kept getting rejected, Marcus was then threatening to spread the third victims nudes around her school but he did not know what school she went to.

This brings us to July 2022, when the first victim finds out that her videos are being sent around her school. She confronted Marcus about sharing the videos and he admitted to her that he was sending it to the third victim.

After this discovery, the police were notified and the investigation in Marcus began.

Investigation Findings:

On 5 August 2022 police attended his home and seized items, including his iPhone and Apple desktop computer.  The examination of Marcus's iPhone identified videos and images classified as child exploitation material. 

179 videos located on the phone was of children under the age of 13. Included material depicting female and male children under the age of 13 performing sexual acts with other children and adults

151 videos located on the phone were of children between the ages of 13 and 18. Some of that material includes videos of the victims mentioned earlier.

Examination of his Apple desktop computer identified videos and images classified as child exploitation material. 

1,852 still images on the computer was children under the age of 13 years.  

158 still images were of children between the ages of 13 and 18.

Marcus could not explain how the images ended up on two of his devices, he denied deliberately seeking out the material. He denied using Torrent sites or searching the dark web.

Sentencing

Marcus Carlo Cappo, pleaded guilty to 15 charges.

Overall his sentence is to be four years imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years, two months and 13 days.

Start Date: FRIDAY, 26 JULY 2024