The investigation is working “to identify the affected children and help them as quickly as possible”
Australian police announced today that they have charged four men in Sydney, suspected of belonging to a network that shared “satanic child pornographic content”.
The four individuals were arrested as part of an investigation into an “international network for the dissemination of satanic child pornographic content”, the police in the Australian state of New South Wales announced in a statement.
“Investigators discovered a pedophile network based in Sydney, which actively participated in the possession, distribution and availability of this content through an internationally managed website”, the authorities stated.
One of the four men arrested on Thursday, aged 26, is accused of having played a leadership role in the group. He was accused of 14 crimes, including the use of telecommunications services (telephone, email or social networks, for example) to make available and access pedopornographic documents.
The other three men, aged 39, 42 and 46, were arrested in a building and charged with various crimes related to pedopornographic content.
All four were denied bail and will wait in detention to appear in court.
“Due to the nature of the documents they shared and the conversations we were aware of, we were concerned about the children these people might come into contact with,” explained Commissioner Jayne Doherty, from the sexual crimes squad, at a press conference.
The police seized several electronic devices, on which thousands of videos, described as “abhorrent”, of violence against children aged 5 to 12, as well as acts of zoophilia, were stored.
“The sharing of pedopornographic material is, unfortunately, increasing”, acknowledged Doherty, adding that the investigation is working “to identify the affected children and help them as quickly as possible”.
