A paedophile ring that filmed tailor-made attacks for individual abusers has been broken by police in 28 countries. Officers arrested 93 people in connection with the case, about half of whom were living in Britain, and rescued 23 victims, all girls.

Police gave warning that both numbers would rise in the next few months. Officers seized thousands of computers, videos and photographs and revealed that they found 1.5 million sexually explicit video and picture files on one computer system alone.

Operation Koala began last year after a child-abuse video, made in Belgium, was discovered in Australia. Police arrested a 42-year-old Italian and have accused him of selling on the internet more than 150 videos of young girls being abused. Police said that his website had been running for 18 months and “generated considerable profits” from about 2,500 customers. The man allegedly filmed the abusive material himself, mainly in his private studio in Ukraine, although some material was filmed in Belgium and the Netherlands. One of the videos allegedly shows a father abusing his daughters aged 9 and 11.

Customers were allegedly able to order tailor-made videos and some even travelled to the studio in order to watch and record the abuse. They also ordered children to wear suggestive lingerie and instructed them on how to pose. Among those arrested were several people in trusted positions, including school teachers and swimming instructors, authorities said.

Italian police forwarded the material, including customer details, to Europol and Eurojust, which coordinates cross-border operations. The material was then sent to the countries where customers were identified. Some of the material was passed to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre in Britain, which oversees intelligence and information from overseas on child sex-abuse crimes. The centre analysed and developed the files and passed details of individual suspects to local police forces.

Jim Gamble, chief executive of the centre, said: “Yet again we see the technology used by paedophiles to facilitate child abuse now turned against them as a result of coordinated and effective international law enforcement cooperation. Operation Koala uncovered the true meaning of online child abuse. In this case, the exchanging of images in which real children were subjected to horrific sexual abuse, often to order.”

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre said that the forces involved in the operation were Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Devon and Cornwall, Durham, Essex, Gloucestershire, Grampian, Greater Manchester, Kent, Metropolitan, Norfolk, Northumbria, North Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Northern Ireland, Scottish Crime Drug Enforcement Agency, Surrey, Sussex, Strathclyde and Thames Valley.

Multitude of sins

28
countries involved in global paedophile ring

46
suspects have been arrested in Britain over the past five months

22
police forces around the country took part in the operation

93
people arrested worldwide

23
children have been rescued

1,000s
of computers, videos and photographs seized

1.5m
video/picture files on one computer

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