121 Brits arrested in global paedophile sting
The biggest ever global operation against organised paedophilia has announced the results of a three year sting on child abuse.
184 child abusers have been arrested as part of Operation Rescue, a global sting to crack down on online paedophilia. The operation targeted 670 offenders in an investigation spanning countries including the UK, Australia, USA, Brazil, Europe and New Zealand.
121 of those arrested were from the UK of whom 33 individuals have been convicted and sentenced in the last three years, during the course of the operation.
Over 200 children are now safe and protected from their abusers.
Rob Wainwright, head of Europol, the European Police Agency, said in a statement from the Hague: “I am proud of the exceptional work of our experts in helping police authorities around the world to record these groundbreaking results.
The safeguarding of so many vulnerable children is particularly rewarding and demonstrates the commitment of our agency to make Europe a safer place for its citizens Rob Wainwright, Head of Europol
“The safeguarding of so many vulnerable children is particularly rewarding and demonstrates the commitment of our agency to make Europe a safer place for its citizens.
“I also pay tribute to the relevant authorities in Europe and elsewhere for their operational work in tracking down the suspected criminals and their victims.”
Suspects have also been found in the Netherlands, Italy, Australia, Thailand and Canada after police forces infiltrated a website. Set up as a chat-room, a minority of its 70,000 subscribing members then made contact with each other elsewhere on the web to swap illegal images and and videos.
The site came under scrutiny in 2007, when the UK’s Child Expolitation and Online Protection team (CEOP) and Australian Federal Police (AFP) joined forces after their own initial investigations and began monitoring the migration of members from the ‘legal’ site towards connections and online movement that led to illegal activities.
From 2008 the UK and Australian teams were joined by a number of task forces from around the world as the global scale of the network system became clear. The website has now been shut down.
Everything they did online, everyone they talked to or anything they shared could and was tracked by following the digital footprint. Peter Davies, Head of CEOP
Peter Davies, head of the UK force CEOP commented on the widespread success of the operation:
“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 lead – 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.
“We are grateful to the support of our law enforcement colleagues both nationally and internationally who have supported CEOP in this operation.”