Paedophile bust saved children
The Age
Thursday March 17, 2011
THREE Victorian children have been "saved" by federal police who helped smash the largest international online paedophile network ever uncovered.The three boys, and another from New South Wales, all aged under 14, are some of the 230 rescued from harm worldwide during investigations that found an internet forum, which sought child abuse material, had 70,000 members.Some victims were "groomed" for sex by paedophiles and many, including infants, were subjected to the "worst of the worst" activities, images of which were then sourced and exchanged by members.At a press conference overnight in The Hague, the European Law Enforcement Agency was to announce the results of a combined law-enforcement operation that lasted more than three years.The head of the Australian Federal Police high-tech crime operations which, with British colleagues, was the first to realise how big the "boylover" website was has declared the network "finished".AFP assistant commissioner Neil Gaughan told The Age its joint investigations since 2007 had "taken the head off" the group, which included its "owner".He revealed this was achieved by AFP undercover operatives infiltrating the senior hierarchy of the group by assuming the identities of arrested offenders.Only after the offender agreed for his "persona" to be assumed would police, after intense debriefing, enter the network, sometimes posing as five different paedophiles at a time.Mr Gaughan warned that investigators remained "active in these sites" and that offenders could never be sure whether they were communicating with friends or police online.Of 184 people charged worldwide, 31 were arrested in Australia, aged from 19 to 84 and including school teachers, IT consultants and farm hands, while "four children were saved from harm", he said.Prosecutions in Victoria, where 15 of 31 offenders were detected, included George Iliakis, arrested while teaching students at Brighton Grammar School and jailed last year.As "Mr Teacherman" on boylover, Iliakis possessed thousands of "graphic" pornographic and child-abuse images, sent some to fellow users and "procured" two children for sexual activity.Another boylover member and network administrator, Phillip Allan Reid, of Malvern, jailed in 2008 over child pornography, admitted to writing how to "seduce and develop relationships with young males", his sentencing judge said.Mr Gaughan said almost 200 offenders had been arrested in more than 20 countries in North and South America, Europe, Russia and south-east Asia.He said that "as well as saving kids in those [countries]", the AFP with British and Dutch police had seized the computer server of the "owner" who hosted the website in the Netherlands.Mr Gaughan regarded the seizure as crucial because it revealed the names of thousands of website members. .Members progressed through the organisation by posting blogs and the more they posted the "higher up the chain you went", he said.
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