Innocent Images Takes Down Major Child Porn Ring

This is a few weeks old, but definitely still noteworthy. Hooray for the FBI having an entire program dedicated to catching child pornography and exploitation and an even bigger hooray for arrests and these sites being shut down!

Innocent Images, a program run by the FBI to combat online child pornography and child exploitation has recently busted a major child porn ring.

With messages that read “Mala is to die for in those pigtails.”, “I have a few 5yo [year old] Taras that you do not have.” and “Just dropping in for a hot minute … to help out the dry spell, and to give everyone something to do for an afternoon.” this ring doesn’t seem too different than the others circulating the internet, however, this ring had many features that Innocent Images had not come across before.

This ring was one of the largest and most sophisticated rings that the FBI has ever come across, using maximum security methods to make them increasingly hard to catch. The ring worked more like a business, with several different people spanning over different countries performing specific jobs within the community. The ring had traded, trafficked and posted over 400,000 images and videos and incorporated several operation security measures.

Since discovered, over 20 victims of child exploitation have been rescued and 22 men have been arrested in the United States, Germany, Australia and the U.K. while more rescues and arrests are being pursued.