German police arrested four members of a suspected gang behind one of the world’s largest child abuse image websites, which contained over 400,000 online members, according to prosecutors.
Last month, German police raided seven addresses across Germany and arrested three men accused of operating Boystown, a platform for distributing indecent and illegal images of children, the BKA, Germany’s federal police agency, wrote in a Monday statement.
Authorities also arrested one man in Paraguay who is slated to be extradited to Frankfurt. The suspects have not been named but are between 40 years old and 64 years old.
The 64-year-old from Hamburg allegedly uploaded more than 3,500 images to the site.
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BKA said the website is no longer operational and that an unspecified number of related chat websites were also shut down.
The three suspects arrested in Germany are accused of founding and maintaining the website. They also reportedly provided advice to online members on how to avoid arrest, BKA added.
The investigation was assisted by the Pan-European police agency Europol, alongside authorities in the United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, and Canada.
Europol released a statement about the arrests, saying, “The image and video data seized during this investigation will be used for Victim Identification. … More arrests and rescues are to be expected globally as police worldwide examine the intelligence packages compiled by Europol.”
The dark web has long been associated with wide forms of criminality, including the sale of drugs and hacked private information.
“There were and there are still several sites similar to Boystown in the darknet. For this reason, investigations will go on to identify the responsible persons behind these darknet sites,” said Julia Bussweiler, a public prosecutor, according to NBC News.
In 2019, the Justice Department arrested hundreds involved in a global cryptocurrency child pornography website in conjunction with U.S., British, and South Korean authorities.
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The Washington Examiner contacted BKA for additional details but did not immediately receive a response.
