Danish paedo dragnet snares 100+

US-supplied intelligence aids crackdown

By John Leyden • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 31st March 2004 12:48 GMT

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More than 100 people were arrested yesterday in a massive crackdown on child porn in Denmark. Police seized 149 computers in 119 dawn raids across the country.

"Twenty-six persons immediately admitted buying child porn through the Internet," said Danish police spokesman Frank Jensen.

Most of the offenders will likely receive fines for visiting paedophile websites, but AP reports that two men are to be charged with the more serious offence of distributing child porn, an offence punishable by up to six years in jail. One man confessed to building 10 paedophile websites using the pornographic images he downloaded.

The raids are the result of tip-offs from US Customs to Danish authorities last December and are reportedly the first of their kind in Denmark.

A US Customs investigation, dubbed Operation Predator, into two companies in Belarus and Florida suspected of laundering profits from paedophile websites yielded the details of 100,000 people worldwide who had paid to access child pornography. US investigators have made 80 domestic arrests so far and are passing on credit card details to their overseas counterparts ®