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The Evening Standard (London)

June 18, 2007 Monday

15 children saved as Net abuse ring is smashed

AT LEAST 15 British children have been rescued from online child abuse as part of the biggest operation to smash an internet paedophile ring, it was revealed today.

In Britain 100 paedophiles have been arrested and a further 100 are being investigated as part of the investigation into an online trading ground for indecent images of children and live exchanges of abuse.

The internet ring collapsed following an international operation involving law enforcement agencies in 35 countries, which was led by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Jim Gamble, chief executive at the CEOP, said the operation rescued 31 children worldwide who have been subjected to abuse online, with a "significant amount" coming from Britain.

The victims ranged from babies who were only a few months old to young teenagers forced into abuse that was often relayed live on the internet and to order. Mr Gamble said today: "This is in my view the biggest ever combined operation in the online environment to underline the activities of serious online paedophiles." The ring's British mastermind, Timothy Cox, 27, was facing jail today. Cox, who used the online identity "Son of God", was being sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court for

Buxall in Suffolk last September after CEOP officers posed as members of the group to gather the names of paedophiles.

While he was in custody, investigators adopted the identity of group members and gathered evidence of hundreds of suspects.

Forensics experts found 75,960 indecent and explicit images on his computer and discovered that he had supplied more than 11,000 images to other internet users.

The original inquiry was mounted by Canadian investigators against an internet chat roomentitled "kiddypics&kiddyvids".

Authorities in Canada and the US arrested 27 people. The British investigation was run in co-operation with authorities in the US, Canada and Australia.

Investigative author Julian Sher, whose book One Child At A Time chronicles the modern investigation of child abuse, said: "This operation involves a new level of crime fighting.

"It is one thing to arrest people for exchanging indecent images, but this operation involved investigators infiltrating the paedophile ring itself. This is the equivalent of infiltrating al Qaeda or infiltrating a drug cartel.

"Now when the child abuse predators are trading images within their own clandestine chat rooms, the police could be there too."

His arrest came after investigators infiltrated a chat room where members transmitted live pictures of child abuse and traded photographs and videos.

Cox set up a chat room called Kids The Light Of Our Lives, which had 200 members in Britain and500 more worldwide.

The site used specialist software which encrypted the identities of the members.