Taking Down Paedophile Networks - Paedophile Digital Footprint - Is This The Beginning? - 50,000 In This Network

Source: guardian.co.uk

Global paedophile network smashed
More than 180 people arrested worldwide after online ring uncovered

Karen McVeigh
Wednesday 16 March 2011

Peter Davies (second from right), of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, at a press conference about the uncovering of a global paedophile ring. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP

A global online paedophile network has been smashed in a worldwide police operation that has led to hundreds of arrests and many convictions.

The investigation exposed more than 50,000 members in the UK, US, New Zealand, Australia and Thailand, where some of the first arrests were made.

A total of 230 children are said to have been taken out of danger, 60 of them in the UK. Worldwide, 184 suspects have been arrested, 121 of them in Britain.

Details were revealed at a press conference in The Hague, the Netherlands, where the website's server was based.

The network hid behind a legal online forum, boylover.net, which operated from a server based in the Netherlands but had members from around the world. The site operated as a discussion-only forum where members could share their sexual interest in young boys without committing specific offences. Having made contact, members would move to more private channels such as email to exchange and share illegal images of children being abused.

The investigation, Operation Rescue, was led by the UK's national centre for child protection and joined by the Australian federal police, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, New Zealand police, Europol, the Zaanstreek-Waterland police in the Netherlands and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It targeted 670 offenders.

Peter Davies, who leads the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), said: "The scale and success of Operation Rescue has broken new ground. Not only is it one of the largest operation of its kind to date – and the biggest operation we have led – it also demonstrates the impact of international law enforcement agencies working together with one single objective: to safeguard children and bring offenders to justice. That drive has been the hallmark of all the forces and teams involved.

"What we show today is that while these offenders felt anonymous in some way because they were using the internet to communicate, the technology was actually being used against them. Everything they did online, everyone they talked to or anything they shared could and was tracked by following the digital footprint.