Facebook group sharing sexual images of children cracked

Calcutta News.Net
Saturday 28th August, 2010

Australian police have sent out a warning to social networking sites after cracking a child porn ring that had been operating on Facebook.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said Friday that their months-long investigation had been facilitated by Facebook, which helped track down 11 members of an international child porn sharing ring.

“In this case, Facebook deactivated the online accounts of the initial suspects but there were indications that, within hours, the groups were reforming again under new accounts,” said Neil Gaughan, the high-tech crime operations manager for the AFP.

Gaughan added that social networking sites should constantly scan their servers for child-exploitative material and notify law enforcement agencies.

The members of the group arrested so far are from Australia, the UK and Canada although the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has reportedly joined the international effort and is investigating possible members of the group in the United States.

The members of the group were using Facebook under fake identities, but a digital footprint is left by every transaction and led law enforcement officials to the porn ring members who were arrested.

The age and gender of the children used by the group was not revealed, but Gaughan described the images and video as “disturbing” evidence of “horrific abuse”.

Two of the children who appear in the material have reportedly been rescued by police in the United Kingdom.

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