Three Catholic priests, a police officer and a social worker are among 186 people reportedly under investigation in Italy this morning after authorities shut down a child torture website.

The website hosted pictures and videos of children between four and eight being sexually abused and tortured. Police are still investigating and are yet to press charges.

The password-protected site was online for just nine days before being closed down in July. Web monitoring organisation Telefono Arcobaleno tipped off authorities, according to AP.

The site was not indexed so wasn’t picked up search engines. It was hosted on an Italian server but advertised in other countries.

The investigation is continuing and no-one has been arrested yet. Premises belonging to 159 suspects in 16 of Italy’s 20 regions were searched on Tuesday. Other suspects have already been searched. ®

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