Cops smash paedophile ring

A detailed investigation by British police has led to the collapse of a paedophile ring involving 700 people, 200 of them in the UK. The 10 month investigation involved police forces in 35 countries. Investigators have already rescued 31 children from abuse. Police investigations continue against 200 British suspects. Timothy …

[Vernon Lloyd]

Well done!

Its not often the police and other law agencies get a pat on the back. Well done to all of those who helped to catch these bastards and thanks to you the internet is one step closer to being safe for the young people and those of the next generation.

Now all they need to do is to give them a punishment which will send shock waves to the perverts out there.

I know that there must be hundreds of websites out there which deal in the photos of our young people purely for them involved 'get off'. It makes me feel ill just typing that thought :-(

THEY ALL MUST BE CLOSED DOWN AND THOSE CAUGHT SEVERELY PUNISHED!

It is good to see that the from September young people will be educated into safe internet usage and taught how to recognise and report abuse. My only concern is are they doing it fast enough and to enough young people. Also lets educate the parents in how to monitor what their child is doing. Lets face it the young people of today seem to know a lot more about computers than their parents.

But one small step is better than nothing. Again Well done to those involved.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a ring?

Could the kind person who has editorial responsibility for what gets published on The Register please explain to me what a 'paedophile ring' is? Is it some kind of erotic dance one engages in with minors? Or could it possibly have something to do with the way that chairs are arranged at one of their shin-digs? Or have they ditched TCP/IP in favour of Token Ring technology?

I think we should be told.

[Dave]

The ring...

How about you get every news site to explain what a ring is...as they've all called it the same thing funnily enough

[Alan]

Report the b*st*rds

If any readers see any websites that contain child porn, or you receive any emails offering child porn, simply report the details to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) http://www.iwf.org.uk/ straight away.

This way, we can stop these despicable lowlifes between us.

[Phil Endecott]

Can we take this at face value, since the Operation Ore disaster?

So were these 700 people really paedophiles, or were they people whose credit card details were stolen? In the "Operation Ore" disaster it seems that credit card fraudsters were signing up for their own sites with stolen cards, and the police computer forensics "experts" failed to notice that most of the suspects (a) signed up from computers located in a different continent, and (b) never visited the web sites that they had supposedly paid for.

I do hope that they haven't made the same mistake this time, because Ore led to the suicides of 39 presumed-innocent men: that's not far off the death toll from 7/7.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/10/ore_credit_card_fraud/

[Richard]

28.5% of pervs live in the UK?

The ring involved 700 people from 35 countries and 200 of them were in the UK. Does that mean that 28.5% of sick, twisted individuals live in the UK? Or put another way, about one in four of the paedophiles in the world live in ol' blighty?! Geez, I'm getting my kids and heading for somewhere safer like the Phillipines or Vietnam because at least they won't let Gaz Glitter back in...

[Graham Marsden]

Ok, but...

If these people are guilty, that's all very well, but this is the same Jim Gamble who suggested criminalising 16 and 17 year olds for performing "sex acts" in front of webcams!

How exactly will that "protect" children?

Also at the end of the CEOP article it says:

"Use of the phrase ‘child pornography’ actually works to the advantage of child sex abusers: [...]

* It conjures up images of children posing in ‘provocative’ positions, rather than suffering horrific abuse

* Every photograph captures an actual situation where a child has been abused. This is not pornography.[/quote]

Of course it also fails to distinguish between *actual* abuse and innocent photographs. Ask Julia Somerville for details about how she was questioned by Police after staff in Boots the Chemists decided that pictures of her and her kids in the bath were "child pornography".

[andywebsdale]

Operation Ore - A scandal

While its good news if any paedophiles get caught and children rescued, the scandal of "Operation Ore" and the number of people presumed guilty has not been publicised enough by far. I don't know if the US investigators liased much with the UK, but surely they warned them that the credit cards were used fraudulently in many cases. Any computer related crime should be at least screened by IT forensic experts, as ordinary police officers of any rank are not technically qualified to make judgements in this area.

For those not fully aware of the details have a look at:

"Operation Ore flawed by fraud"

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2059832,00.htm

and

"Is Operation Ore the UK's worst-ever policing scandal?"

http://society.guardian.co.uk/e-public/comment/0,,2065328,00.html

[Pascal Monett]

Brilliant !

I'm quite happy that 700 paedophiles have been nabbed. As has been said above, I'd like to be sure that they're ALL paedophiles though. I can't think of anything worse than to be falsely accused of being a child abuser. I can very well understand those that have taken their lives during the ill-fated Operation Ore. It is well and good that this instance of despicable activity has been dismantled, but let us ensure that everyone that has been arrested is indeed guilty before letting the dogs at them.

[De Zeurkous]

Hm

``which was used to trade images and videos of children being assaulted.''

The very nature of paedophilia indicates that either (multiple choices allowed :^):

1) These persons were not paedophiles;

2) They have some weird fetish that includes aspects of violence;

3) Like the infamous Child Snuff Movies(TM) (which turned out /not to exist/), the authorities in question have gone haywire.

Besides, keep in mind that while we can just enter [URL removed to avoid censorship] into our web browsers and get off, while they need to get their relief through underground circles; building a solid relationship with an SO is practically impossible for them in our current society...

[David Cantrell]

Being cynical for a moment ...

The cynic in me wonders how many times the police and government are going to seed stories in the press from this one incident, to further their agenda of ever more surveillance and interference in peoples' private lives BECAUSE OF THE CHIIIILDREN, all the while carefully not mentioning that most kiddy-fiddlers are either family members or very close family friends.

[De Zeurkous]

RE: Being cynical for a moment ...

``all the while carefully not mentioning that most kiddy-fiddlers are either family members or very close family friends.''

Just like most wiki-fiddlers are either in the Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation or Arbcom members, right?

[David Cherry]

The Law is an Ass

Its legal to have sex with a 16-17 year old. But if you have any nude pictures of him/her that child porn