December 12, 2008	Friday	Zilhaj 13, 1429

SYDNEY, Dec 11: Australian police have arrested 19 men and expect to pick up others belonging to a global child porn ring involving more than 200 people in 70 countries, officers said on Thursday.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have also identified another three suspects following a one-year investigation into an online child sex image and video-sharing network that was sparked by a tip-off from Brazilian police.

The arrests came in a series of raids in the states of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland in which officers seized more than 15,000 videos and 500,000 images that showed the abuse of children as young as one year old.

“The videos seized as part of this operation have to be among the worst we have seen,” said Acting Deputy Commissioner of Operations Andrew Colvin.

“Some depicted sexual abuse of children lasting more than two hours, he said.

“Over 200 suspects have been identified across a number of countries, over 70 countries and I think on any scale that’s a good result,” Colvin said, warning that viewing and swapping child pornography was an international crime and that offenders would be caught.

“(We) will continue to fight this repulsive crime. If we are not knocking on your door this morning, then it could be tomorrow,” he said.

Police official, Neil Geughan, said the images of child sex abuse involved children from all over the world. “It is not specifically just Brazilian children,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“We are finding with these type of images that it is very difficult for law enforcement to track them down but we are receiving information that they are based primarily in eastern Europe and North and South America,” he said.

The use of peer-to-peer image sharing networks allowed members of the porn ring to share files without going through a central network server, avoiding filters operated by the internet service providers, he said.—AFP