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Removing your record from Mugshots.com

Site guide · mugshots.com · checked 2026-08-25

The one site in this industry whose operators were actually prosecuted. It no longer takes money, and it removes on six grounds only.

Mugshots.com now states in capital letters that it does not accept payment for removal. That is a real change and it is worth understanding why it happened, because the site that changed is the same site whose four alleged operators were charged with extortion by the California Attorney General in 2018 and pleaded out in 2025.

What it will do is narrow and published: it removes on expungement, sealing, no-information, record restriction, identity theft, or death. Everything else it declines.

What this site is

The domain has existed since 12 April 1996. The registrar is Sea Wasp, LLC and the WHOIS registrant is masked; the site's own footer says it is “Owned and Operated by: Julkisuudessa, Nevis, West Indies”.
That offshore posture is not new. The 2018 charging affidavit described the business address in Nevis, the domain registered in Belize and the hosting in Australia, and characterised the business as “permeated with fraud”.
The site now describes itself as a news organisation. Its policy page reads: “TO BE CLEAR: WE DO NOT ACCEPT PAYMENT FOR REMOVAL OF ARREST INFORMATION AND/OR BOOKING PHOTOGRAPHS.”
A domain-restricted search returns almost nothing but the homepage and the policy page. That is consistent with heavy de-indexing but is not proof of it — absence from one search is weak evidence either way.

How removal actually works

What it accepts

Six grounds, stated on its policy page: expungement, seal, no information, record restriction, identity theft, or death. If your disposition is not one of those six, there is no published route.

What it will not do

Take money. The policy is explicit, and given the case history it is the one part of the policy you can rely on.

The practical route

Documentary proof of one of the six grounds. There is no fee to argue about and no upsell, which makes this a paperwork problem rather than a negotiation.

What the removal industry charges for this site

No removal vendor publishes a price for this site. The historical price, though, is documented in court and press records, and it is the reason the site's policy now reads the way it does.

The fee the operation itself charged, through the companion site UnpublishArrest.com, was reported at $399 in one account and $500 paid in another. The 2016 Gabiola complaint alleged fees ranging from $398 to $2,000, with one plaintiff quoted $15,000 “to remove everything” and another $1,000 per page.

The California Attorney General alleged the operation collected more than $64,000 from about 175 Californians and more than $2 million from about 5,703 people nationally, over three years. Those were allegations. The restitution actually ordered in 2025 was $78,000.

Where Google comes into it

The exploitative-removal route is closed here on today's facts, because the policy requires that the site demand payment and this one now refuses it. Note the policy's exact wording, though — it covers payment “to the site or other agencies”, so a site that routes you to a separate paid removal service still qualifies. Mugshots.com did exactly that until 2018. It does not now.

What we would charge you for, and what we would not

If your case was expunged, sealed, no-informationed, restricted, dismissed as identity theft, or the subject has died, file it yourself with the documents. There is nothing to pay and nothing for us to add.
Where we help: assembling the proof when the court paperwork is ambiguous, and dealing with the copies. This record has usually been syndicated, and the copies do not share this site's policy.
If anyone quotes you a fee to pay Mugshots.com, stop. That fee does not go to the site, and the site has publicly said it will not take it.

Common questions

Were the Mugshots.com operators convicted?

Three of the four — Sahar Sarid, Kishore Bhavnanie and Thomas Keesee — pleaded no contest on 5 May 2025 to identity theft and attempted extortion. David Usdan had pleaded guilty in 2022 to being an accessory after the fact.

What was the sentence?

One year of summary probation each, a shared $78,000 in restitution, plus court fees, with credit for time served in 2018. None served additional jail time. The 2018 charges had included money laundering; that count does not appear in the final pleas.

Does Mugshots.com charge for removal now?

No. Its policy page says so in capitals, and after the prosecution that is the part of the policy least likely to change back.

My charges were dropped but not expunged. Will it remove the page?

Its published grounds do not include a bare dismissal — they include no-information and record restriction, which are different things with different paperwork. Getting the disposition characterised correctly is usually the difference between a yes and a no.

Try the free route first

Google removes your phone number, home address, email and — since February 2026 — government ID numbers at no cost through its own tool. More than 10 million people have used it. It does not cover arrest records, so it will not touch the listing on this page, but it is free and worth running before you pay anyone for anything.

Open Google’s Results about you tool

Sources

Every claim on this page was checked against these sources on 2026-08-25. Sites in this category change without notice. If you find something here that is no longer true, tell us and we will correct it.