Oz cops arrest 70 in child porn crackdown

Melbourne, June 5 : Almost 1500 suspected Australian paedophiles have been identified under an international child pornography sting, which has already led the police to make almost 70 arrests Down Under.

The arrests come after an Interpol tip-off led the police from 170 countries to start a six-month investigation into child pornography in December.

Those arrested include an Australian Federal Police officer and a primary school teacher, who first photographed students and then superimposed their faces and his on the naked images.

All the victims belonged to the age-group of 0-18 years. They also arrested 10 men from NSW, 40 from Queensland, 12 from Victoria, four from South Australia, one from Western Australia and two from the ACT.

Police has also removed 4 kids from the homes of some of the arrested men after they were identified as at risk by the investigators. In addition, 13 more men in NSW and seven others interstate have also been summoned by the police.

The Interpol tip off came after a respected European Internet site was hacked, and enabled the users to download images of 95 children in graphic sexual acts and positions. In the 76 hours of its run, the site recorded 12 million hits and was finally shut down,

According to AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty, local law enforcement agencies had discovered 2800 addresses from where these images were accessed. In fact, there were a few addresses that were also traced to libraries, duplicates and homes.

They finally closed in on 1513 suspects across Australia as part of Operation Centurion. He also indicated that nearly 300 search warrants were executed by the police last month, in which they confiscated almost a million images. However, they have not been able to identify any Australian victims as yet.

ANI