By Elishya Perera
SYDNEY (CWBN)_ Australian Federal Police (AFP) has charged 44 men and rescued 16 children from a national paedophile ring in Australia. The alleged perpetrators are aged from 19 and 57 years and employed in a range of industries including Construction, Transport, Law Enforcement and Hospitality. They are now facing a combined 350 charges, all related to possessing or producing child exploitation material.
The suspects are accused of using a cloud storage platform to share child abuse material online. “Technological advances, such as end-to-end encryption, pose significant challenges for law enforcement,” Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said. “I commend the dedication of our specialists who work tirelessly to ensure these crimes have no place in our society”.
However, Commissioner at AFP, Reece Kershaw, pointed out that, while the dedication and hard work of the police should be recognised, “Arresting offenders and putting them before the court is only half the battle”.
According to Kershaw, the AFP had rescued 134 children from child exploitation this year, 67 domestically and 67 internationally. In the past 12 months alone, the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) had intercepted and examined more than 250,000 child abuse material files.
“Viewing, distributing or producing child exploitation material is a crime. Children are not commodities and the AFP and its partner agencies work around the clock to identify and prosecute offenders,” Kershaw said.
