The arrests came after Europol and Belgian authorities raided a house under Operation GARGAMEL.
Last month HackRead.com reported about a worldwide police operation against child pornography content sites that led to the seizing of DarkScandals and the arrest of its administrator Mr. Dark. The website was reportedly offering over 2,000 images and videos of objectionable content including real footage of violent rape, blackmailing, and child abuse material.
Dutch and US law enforcement authorities arrested the 32-year old DarkScandals’ admin on March 9, from Barendrecht, the Netherlands. The operation was supervised by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) in collaboration with law enforcement and intelligence agencies from the Netherlands, Germany, and the USA.
Now, there is another major breakthrough in Europol’s fight against online child abuse content. According to the latest press release from Europol, another globally operating network of child exploiters has been busted by law enforcement authorities from around the world. The gang network was spread in over 40 countries.
The authorities were tipped by an investigation report from Belgian East Flanders Federal Judicial Police. Reportedly, during a house search, Belgian police discovered more than 9 million video footage and images of child sexual abuse involving thousands of children from different parts of the world. A majority of the content was unique for law enforcement as they had never seen it circulating on the web.
Since it involved no less than 15 TB of files and many contacts via the dark web, it was necessary to expand the initial research team and start an international collaboration, Belgian Police said in a child abuse busted files seized
