Posted on 06/18/2007 9:29:34 AM PDT by Clive
LONDON (AP) — British police, with aid from U.S. investigators, have shattered a global Internet pedophile ring, rescuing 31 children and rounding up more than 700 suspects worldwide, authorities said Monday.
Some 200 suspects are based in Britain, said the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center, a government agency. Of the 31 children, some only a few months old, more than 15 were in Britain, the center said.
British authorities would not break down where the other suspects or children came from. A Canadian official said 24 Canadians were arrested and seven children rescued, but added that the time period was longer than the more than 10 months the British said their portion of the investigation lasted. U.S. officials declined to comment because their investigation is continuing.
The ring was traced to an Internet chat room called “Kids the Light of Our Lives” that featured images of children being subjected to horrific sexual abuse — including streaming live videos.
Authorities said they used surveillance tactics normally used against terrorism suspects and drug traffickers to infiltrate the pedophile ring at its highest level.
Officials also said the United States, Canada and Australia were Britain’s main
partners in the investigation, which involved agencies from 35 countries.
Investigators with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said they could not immediately comment on the arrests because the U.S. investigation, spanning at least 12 states, is ongoing.
Toronto police conducted online surveillance along with British police, said Detective Sgt. Kim Scanlan of the Toronto police sex crimes unit. She said 24 Canadians were arrested and seven Canadian children rescued since late 2005.
“Every arrest we make we seize computers and information so there are a number of ongoing investigations,” Scanlan said. “There’s just been great cooperation. It’s a good day, but it’s one day out of many.”
The host of the chat room, Timothy David Martyn Cox, 27, of Buxhall, who used the online identity “Son of God,” admitted to nine counts of possessing and distributing indecent images, authorities said.
Cox was given an indeterminate jail sentence Monday at a court in eastern England. That means he will remain in prison until authorities determine he is no longer a threat to children.
“Today’s verdict serves as a powerful warning to those using the Internet to facilitate the sexual exploitation of children,” said Jim Gamble, the child protection center’s chief executive.
Cox was identified after intelligence linking the chat room to Britain was passed on to the child protection center by Canadian authorities in August 2006. The center is an agency under the purview of the Home Office that is made up of officers with special experience in tracking and prosecuting sex offenders.
After Cox’s arrest on Sept. 28, 2006, British, Canadian and Australian authorities were able to infiltrate the chat room and collect evidence on the other members. Officers posed as contributors and even pretended to be Cox, running the chat room for 10 days.
At no point did officers distribute illegal images.
Forensic teams examining Cox’s computer found 75,960 indecent and explicit images in addition to evidence that he had supplied 11,491 images to other site users.
A man described as Cox’s lieutenant, Gordon Mackintosh, tried to resurrect the chat room in January. Authorities in Britain, Canada, Australia and the U.S. again infiltrated the operation.
Upon Mackintosh’s arrest in January, authorities assumed his identity online and ran the chat room for three days while collecting information on offenders who traded images.
Mackintosh, 33, has pleaded guilty to 27 charges of making, possessing and distributing indecent images and videos. He is awaiting sentencing.
More important than the number of adults arrested was the number of children rescued.
More important than the number of adults arrested was the number of children rescued.
I would not put it that way.
NO perp no crime. Put the monsters away forever..
I’m thinking here it is time to start taking out the trash and trim the herd of these low life’s.
Build a big blender.
Soooo - any more ACLU bigwigs? UN personnel, perhaps?
This must be a devastating blow to the perverts and the gay communinity. Why such bigotry against alternative lifestyles? Sarc
Time to bring back the Guillotine.
Bring back Jack Ketch.
See my solution in my profile. These guys are worthy of it.
OK, I had to find out who that was...sounds like the man for the job
in this case!
Jack Ketch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ketch
The way things are going, if the inmates belonging to the ACLU, NEA and UN all united, they could challenge the Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, Folk Nation, Mexican Mafia and Aryan Brotherhood for prison gang supremacy.
The Belgians were involved with some sort of international pedophile ring. Freepers will remember the kidnapped girls who died of starvation while imprisoned in a basement dungeon.
The UN is recurrently involved in the pedophile trade. This has been the case in Africa, and apparently in the Balkans as well.
I suspect that this is commoner than one might imagine among people of power, since so many people of power grew up during the “summer of love” and are now in positions to act out their fantasies.
Were the 31 children all boys, all girls or both?
I undestand your point, but I cannot understand why people have such fantasies.
I absolutely adore children, especially little girls, but it only makes me feel more protective towards them.
I can understand why a man who's had a difficult time with women could develop unreasonable, even psychotic, anger towards all women, but why would one want to hurt little girls or boys?
Doubtless causing much consternation amongst the muslim Umma, who must now go back to reading “Playgoat”.
There’s more scum than that....but it’s a start.
http://www.joecartoon.com/cartoons/67-frog_in_a_blender
I can’t imagine it either, but there it is.
I think one source is ready availability of pornography, especially if people are exposed to it when young. I have never looked at pornography, even when I was growing up, because I understood even then that it could be habit forming, and once in the mind hard to get out.
Now it’s everywhere, if people have a mind to it, and modern sex-ed mostly sees nothing wrong with it.
I’m not sure the terms “heterosexual” and “homosexual” are fully applicable to pedophiles. A good many of them are switch-hitters, for instance. They take what’s available.
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