Nearly 100 people have been arrested in Australia and the United States in connection with a “technologically sophisticated” international pedophile ring, authorities announced on Tuesday. The joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Australian Federal Police (AFP), which was launched after the tragic murder of two FBI agents in 2021, resulted in a combined 98 arrests and at least 13 children rescued.
The story of “Operation Bakis” began in 2021, when FBI Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were gunned down while attempting to execute a child pornography search warrant in Sunrise, Florida. The 55-year-old suspect, computer programmer David Lee Huber, was believed to be in possession of child abuse materials. When agents arrived to search Huber’s apartment, he opened fire with an automatic weapon, fatally shooting Alfin and Schwartzenberger through the door and injuring three other agents. Huber was found dead inside the apartment from a self-inflicted gunshot.
In the wake of the shooting—the FBI’s first deaths in the line of duty since 2008—evidence found in Huber’s possession directed investigators to an international network of pedophiles and child abusers.
A statement released by the Australian Federal Police on Tuesday revealed that “the investigation began in 2022 when the FBI provided the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) with intelligence about Australian members of a peer-to-peer network allegedly sharing child abuse material on the dark web.”
The AFP announced that 19 Australian men have been arrested for sharing child abuse material online, charged with a combined 138 criminal counts. The ages of the perpetrators range from 32 to 81, according to the statement. 13 children in total were removed by AFP officers, with some being abuse victims and others being taken as a safety precaution. Two suspects have already been sentenced.
The FBI further corroborated that 79 arrests have been made in the United States, with 43 convictions so far. FBI legal attaché Nitiana Mann also revealed that more than 200 international leads have been sent to other partner countries, leading to approximately 300 spinoff investigations.
Add comment