A massive international pedophile network spanning across over 30 countries was shut down, and dozens of arrests were made relating to child pornography, the Europol police agency announced on Wednesday.
The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation said that the Darknet child porn platform “Kidflix” has been shut down under the direction of the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office in Germany.
Europol said that the platform had an estimated 1.8 million users throughout the world, with investigations being coordinated across 35 counties.
So far, 79 people have been arrested and nearly 1,400 further suspects have been identified, over one hundred of whom were located in Germany, broadcaster NTV reports.
The platform, which was created in 2021, is said to have been one of the largest of its kind in the world and the largest to date to have existed in Europe.
According to the investigators, the site had over 91,000 child porn videos before it was shut down, with an average of three and half videos being uploaded to the site every hour. In exchange for paying a fee to the site, users were able to stream and upload videos of child sex abuse.
The international investigation spearheaded by Europol began in 2022, which culminated last month when thousands of electronic devices were seized, the site’s servers in Germany and the Netherlands were shut down, and 79 people were arrested.
Europol said that those arrested were not only accused of watching or uploading child pornography, but some were also suspected of having actually carried out the abuse of children themselves.
Last October, Europol was involved in a joint investigation with the FBI in the United States that resulted in the arrest of a Czech-American dual national who was described as being one of the world’s most prolific homosexual child pornographers.
Police said that at the time, the suspect “mainly distributed content created by others and gave advice about ways to sexually abuse underage boys or to distribute child sexual abuse content on the dark web.”
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