19 men arrested, 13 children rescued in AFP child abuse bust

Australian Community Media

Two of the men have been sentenced and others remain before the courts. The FBI tipped off the AFP about Australian members of a network allegedly sharing child abuse material on the dark web.

Transcript

00:00 The AFP has coordinated a joint investigation,

00:04 which has resulted in 13 children being rescued

00:07 and the arrest of 19 men.

00:10 We will allege that these men were members

00:12 of a technologically sophisticated

00:15 online child abuse network

00:17 that were operating across the country.

00:19 Operation Backus kicked off in 2022

00:24 as a result of information that was provided by the FBI

00:28 to the ACE in relation to Australian members

00:32 of a peer-to-peer network

00:34 allegedly sharing child abuse material online.

00:38 This has been a complex investigation.

00:41 Members of this network were using encryption

00:44 and other methods to avoid law enforcement detection

00:47 whilst they were sharing videos

00:48 and files of child abuse material.

00:50 In Australia, the AFP-led ACE

00:54 has nationally coordinated Operation Backus.

00:58 We worked closely with our state and territory partners,

01:01 including ACT Policing, the Queensland Police Service,

01:04 New South Wales Police Force, South Australia Police,

01:07 Tasmania Police, and Western Australia Police Force.

01:10 To date, 19 Australian men have been charged

01:14 with a total of 138 offences.

01:17 And as I mentioned earlier,

01:19 13 children have been removed from further harm.

01:23 Whilst many of these men are still before the court process,

01:28 I can advise that two of them have been sentenced to jail,

01:31 one in the ACT for just under 15 years

01:34 and one in New South Wales for five years.

01:37 Viewing, distributing,

01:39 and producing child abuse material is a horrific crime.

01:46 And the lengths that this network went to

01:48 to avoid detection is an indication

01:51 of just how dangerous they were.

01:53 The longer people like this avoid detection,

01:56 it means the longer the cycle of abuse continues.

01:59 This was a sophisticated network.

02:02 And while we have charged 19 people,

02:04 the AFP and our partners do not rule out

02:07 further arrests in relation to this matter.

02:10 The success of Operation Backus

02:12 demonstrates the unique ability of the AFP

02:15 to connect with its partners in law enforcement

02:19 on a national level and connect those

02:21 to our international partners like the FBI.

02:24 (silence)

02:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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