The "Boystown" platform was said to have had more than 400,000 registered members before it was shut down in mid-April, prosecutors said. “Images of the most severe sexual abuse of toddlers” were found among the videos and photographs.
German authorities broke up an international child pornography ring described as “one of the world’s biggest child pornography darknet platforms," said to have had more than 400,000 registered members before it was shut down last month, prosecutors said, CBS News reported.
The three main suspects: a 40-year-old male from Paderborn, a 49-year-old man from Munich and a 58-year-old male from northern Germany, who had been living in Paraguay for many years, were arrested in mid-April. All three men were all administrators of the “Boystown” platform, said Frankfurt prosecutors and the Federal Criminal Police Office in a statement, Global News reported.
Germany has since put in a request to extradite the suspect from Paraguay, a report said.
A fourth suspect was a 64-year-old man from Hamburg, who was accused of being one of the most highly active users of the site, having allegedly uploaded more than 3,500 posts, CBS reported.
During the sting operation, prosecutors said explicit “images of the most severe sexual abuse of toddlers” were found among the videos and photographs.
The ring that had reportedly been active since 2019 was a platform pedophiles would frequent to exchange and watch pornography of children and toddlers. The majority of them were boys, authorities said. The suspects gave advice to members on how to evade law enforcement when using the platform for illegal child pornography, CBS reported.
After a series of police raids, the site was taken off in mid-April, officials said. Police also shut down the chatroom associated with the site, Global News reported.
Germany’s federal investigative police force led the investigation over several months in cooperation with Europol and law enforcement agencies in the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, the United States and Canada, the statement said, according to the news organization.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer thanked the authorities for a mission that was successfully done.
”This investigative success has a clear message: Those who assault the weakest aren't safe anywhere,” Seehofer said. “That’s what investigators work for day and night, online and offline, globally.”
He added: ”We’ll do everything within our power to protect the kids from these disgusting crimes.”
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