(NewsNation) — An international child abuse ring that stretched all the way to Australia was busted by the FBI and Australian authorities, resulting in the arrests of dozens of men.
In Australia, 19 men between the ages of 32 and 81 years old were also arrested and charged with a total of 138 offenses related to peer-to-peer sharing of video and images on the dark web.
Most were information technology professionals with a high degree of technical competence, she said.
Two of the 19 men already were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of almost 15 years in the Australian Capital Territory and five years in New South Wales state, Australian Federal Police Commander Helen Schneider said.
At least 13 children were rescued in Australia in connection to the child abuse scheme.
“We are proud of our longstanding relationship with the Australian Federal Police resulting in 19 Australian men facing criminal prosecution as a result of our collaborative investigation,” FBI Legal Attaché Nitiana Mann said.
The FBI announced 79 arrests, 65 indictments and 43 convictions in the U.S. on Tuesday in connection to the same child abuse ring.
Mann said the FBI had alerted other countries to suspects within their jurisdictions but did not name those countries.
The arrests came after a yearslong investigation with the FBI and Australian federal police. The 2021 Florida murders of two FBI agents, FBI Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger, ultimately led authorities to the pedophile ring.
In 2022, the FBI and the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) began Operation Bakis, a joint investigation into the ring, sharing intelligence on Australian members of peer-to-peer networks allegedly sharing child abuse material on the dark web, the press release said.
Members of the pedophile ring used software to anonymously share files and chat on message boards across websites, the press release said. The suspects allegedly used encryptions and other methods to avoid law enforcement when searching and distributing images and videos of child abuse material.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
