THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Police said Wednesday they have smasheda huge international pedophile ring, rescuing 230 children fromabuse and arresting 184 suspects - including teachers and policeofficers.
The three-year investigation code-named Operation Rescueuncovered 670 suspects and identified and safeguarded children inmore than 30 countries by arresting people accused of abusing them,said Rob Wainwright, director of the European Union police agencyEuropol.
The ring was centered on an Amsterdam-based online forum thatWainwright described as "probably the largest online pedophilenetwork in the world."
"These are very serious crimes on a truly global basis," headded.
The heavily encrypted forum, whose administrator appeared in aDutch court on Tuesday charged with sex offenses, had up to 70,000members.
The investigation was led by Britain's Child Exploitation andOnline Protection Center but also involved law enforcement agenciesas far afield as Australia, the United States and Thailand.
Peter Davies of the British child protection center said therewould be more arrests as the investigations continue.
"Those who have been members of the site can expect a knock onthe door in the very near future," he said. In Britain, police said,the children involved were ages 7 to 14.
Wainwright said the website was intended as a discussion forumwhere pedophiles could "share their sexual interest in young boys."
Europol released parts of online conversations and other postsincluding a discussion between two suspects, identified only as Xand Y, about their attraction to boys wearing diapers.
Y said he had convinced one boy he needed to wear a diaper everyweekend from the age of 9 to 13. "They were the happiest four yearsof my life," he said.
After making initial contact on the forum, members would use e-mail and other electronic channels to share images and videos ofchildren being abused, Wainwright said.
While the forum did not include child pornography, "computersseized from those arrested have harvested huge quantities of childabuse images and videos," Europol said in a statement.
The majority of the 184 people arrested so far are suspected ofdirect involvement in sexually abusing children, They includeteachers, police officers and scout leaders. One Spaniard who workedat summer youth camps is suspected of abusing some 100 children overfive years.
After his arrest, the forum's Dutch administrator helped policecrack the complex web of encryption measures shielding users'identities, allowing police to begin covert investigations thatincluded posing as children online.
"What we have shown today is that while these offenders feltanonymous in some way because they were using the Internet tocommunicate, the technology was actually being used against them,"Davies said. "Everything they did online, everyone they talked to oranything they shared could be, and was, tracked by following thedigital footprint."
Australian Federal Police commander Grant Edwards said suspectsarrested in Australia ranged in age from 19 to 84 and used theInternet to "prey on children with anonymity, with subterfuge andwith camouflage."
He said the oldest suspect identified by Australian authoritieswas an 84-year-old man living in Thailand who is suspected ofabusing children.
Children, Edwards said, "should be able to use the Internetsafely, without fear of being approached or groomed by these onlinepredators."
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