Around 100 people were arrested in United States and Australia over child sexual allegations and 13 children rescued in an international probe launched by the Federal Burau of Investigation (FBI) after two of its officers were killed while investigating the international paedophile ring.
The joint operation, dubbed ‘Operation Bakis’, by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and FBI led to 79 arrests, 65 indictments, and 43 convictions in the US, while 19 men were arrested in Australia.
The global child abuse ring was a “peer to peer network” with “some offenders committing offenses for over 10 years,” Australian Federal Police Commander Helen Schneider said in a news conference on Tuesday (Aug 8).
“Some of the children were known to the men who were arrested,” Schneider added but did not divulge further.
Those arrested in Australia are between the ages of 32 to 81 years old, the federal police agency said. So far, two have been sentenced.
Accused involved in IT profession
The AFP said that most of the Australian suspects had high knowledge of internet networks and had been involved in such occupations.
“Members used software to anonymously share files, chat on message boards and access websites within the network,” it said.
Some were also accused of having produced their own child abuse material to share with members of the network, the agency said.
“Viewing, distributing or producing child abuse material is a horrific crime, and the lengths that these alleged offenders went to in order to avoid detection makes them especially dangerous — the longer they avoid detection the longer they can perpetuate the cycle of abuse,” Australian Federal Police Commander Helen Schneider said in a statement.
Probe after two FBI agents shot dead
The probe was launched in 2022 by the Australian federal elegancy after the FBI provided intelligence inputs to the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation about the individuals being part of a “peer-to-peer network allegedly sharing child abuse material on the dark web.”
The FBI was on the lookout for the paedophile group after two of its agents investigating the alleged ring were shot dead in 2021 while executing a search warrant for a computer programmer suspected of possession of child abuse material, reports CNN.
Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were found dead at a Sunrise, Florida apartment complex, while three other agents were wounded and the suspect in the shooting died at the scene.
At the time, Miami FBI Special Agent in Charge George Piro called the shooting and the loss of Alfin and Schwartzenberger, “a very dark day for the FBI.”
“This operation was highly complex,” the FBI’s legal attaché in Canberra, Nitiana Mann, told reporters Tuesday.
“The complexity and anonymity of these platforms means that no agency or country can fight these threats alone”, adding that further arrests might be on the cards.
More than 200 international leads had been sent to partner countries and more than 300 investigations opened as a result of the joint operation, Mann said.
(With inputs from agencies)
