Sting on dark web child-abuse site rescues 100 kids

More than 100 children have been rescued after a Queensland police squad secretly took over a dark web child-abuse forum.

Taskforce Argos officer Paul Griffiths. Picture: Annette Dew.

More than 100 children have been rescued after a Queensland police squad secretly took over a dark web child-abuse forum, in an undercover sting that has led to arrests overseas.

A healthcare professional working with children and another man who abused at least 10 boys and girls were among offenders identified with the assistance of Task Force Argos, an internationally renowned team based in Brisbane.

Argos investigators ran the site, Childs Play, for almost a year, posing as its founder after his US arrest so they could covertly gather details on members and identify victims.

Lawyers, military personnel and IT workers are among those who have been arrested, The Australian can reveal.

About 3000 active members were targeted as they exchanged videos and images involving children as young as babies and engaged in discussions about abuse, police have confirmed.

Releasing results from the operation for the first time, Argos victim-identification manager Paul Griffiths said about 100 offenders had been identified. An even greater number of victims had been identified, with the operation’s primary aim being to rescue children.

“We are well over 100 kids identified in terms of children who were abused,” Mr Griffiths said.

Detective Inspector Jon Rouse said the location of victims and their abusers usually did not emerge until investigations were well advanced.

“If they are outside our country we will not turn our backs on them,” Inspector Rouse said.

Childs Play was launched in April 2016 and quickly became one of the dark web’s most popular child-abuse forums.

In October that year its Canadian founder, Benjamin Faulkner, and an American, Patrick Falte, were arrested in Virginia in the US and charged with the rape of a four-year-old girl.

Days later Argos used Faulkner’s login details to take over the forum, giving them access to members’ private chats, videos and images.

Mr Griffiths and other investigators posed as Faulkner to keep the forum going while they built profiles of offenders and victims.

Argos was running the forum when a man started posting new videos of the abuse of a girl, 7, in The Philippines, The Australian has been told.

He was identified as a French national and arrested on his return to his homeland, where he had arranged to meet with others to abuse another child.

Faulkner and Falte were jailed for life in September last year on sexual assault charges.

The site, which had been moved to an Australian server, was shut down by Argos the same month but investigations continued.

Argos previously took over dark web forum The Love Zone after the 2014 arrest of South Australian carer and pedophile Shannon McCoole.

The TLZ operation led to the arrest of some of the world’s worst pedophiles, including Britain’s Richard Huckle, who was convicted of the rape and sexual assault of 23 children from Malaysia and Cambodia.

The results come as the federal government plans a new national centre to tackle what it has called a “global epidemic” of child exploitation. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said $68.6 million would be provided in the 2018-19 budget for the Brisbane-based Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation.