Almost 100 people have been arrested for alleged child sex abuse and 13 children were rescued in an international operation two years after a pair of FBI agents investigating the ring were murdered.
The FBI says that 79 arrests, 65 indictments, and 43 convictions were secured in the US, while 19 men were also arrested in Australia.
The arrests came after Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were shot dead in 2021 while executing a search warrant in Sunrise, Florida, for a computer programmer linked to the ring.
The alleged abuse ring was a “peer to peer network” said Australian Federal Police Commander Helen Schneider, with some suspects “committing offenses for over 10 years.”
“Some of the children were known to the men who were arrested,” she added.
The investigation in Australia began in 2022 when the FBI passed on information about Australian suspects sharing child abuse material on the dark web.
Investigators in the country say that most of the alleged Australian suspects had professional IT skills.
Suspected network members used “software to anonymously share files, chat on message boards and access websites within the network,” using encryption and “other methods to avoid law enforcement detection,” according to AFP.
And Cmdr Schneider added: “Viewing, distributing and producing child abuse material is a horrific crime, and the lengths that this network went to avoid detection is an indication of just how dangerous they were.”
Officials say that 200 leads have been sent to partner countries and more than 300 investigations have been opened.
