Australian police say four men have been arrested on suspicion of being involved in an “international diabolical child sex abuse trafficking ring” and victims are still being identified.
Det. Addendum Jane Doherty, commander of the NSW Sexual Offenses Team, said the four men were suspected of sharing “abhorrent” content depicting children from infants to 12 years old and animals with international networks.
“Police will allege in court that this international group engaged in conversations and sharing material depicting child abuse and torture involving symbols and rituals associated with satanism and the occult,” Doherty said on Monday.
Mr Doherty said “thousands of videos” had been found on electronic devices seized during simultaneous raids on multiple properties in Sydney last week.
“Among these harrowing images were numerous videos depicting sexual abuse of animals,” she added.
Video released by New South Wales Police shows the arrest of a 26-year-old man outside Waterloo, who police say played a “leading role” in the group.
Officers could be heard yelling “police” before using a battering ram to enter the apartment and take the man, who was wearing zebra-print shorts and a T-shirt, into custody.
The investigation was carried out by the NSW Sexual Offenses Squad as part of Strike Force Constantine, an operation established in April to investigate online distribution of child sexual abuse containing ritual or satanic themes.
In November, police became aware of a group of men in Sydney suspected of being part of a larger international pedophile syndicate.
They were “communicating with each other and also sharing blatant child abuse material across that international group,” Doherty claimed.
Police could not confirm the identities of the children involved or in which country the material was produced.
“We have not identified the actual child, but the image is of a real child,” she said.
“Thousands of files” found
Police executed six search warrants across Sydney last week and arrested four men, police said.
The 26-year-old was charged with several offenses, including providing child abuse material and possessing child abuse material. He was also charged with disseminating and possessing bestiality material, police said.
Three men, aged 46, 42 and 39, were arrested in the coastal suburb of Malabar in connection with the same child abuse network. They face several charges related to possession or distribution of child abuse material.
NSW Police Force Supplementary Jane Doherty has revealed details of four men charged with sharing child abuse material.
All four, whose names have not been released by police, have been refused bail and are scheduled to appear in court in January next year.
Police are combing through “thousands of files” to find other suspects in the group who may have shared the images on an encrypted international platform.
The abuse was “particularly devastating because of the symbols and rituals associated with it that were used in discussions of the abuse of children,” she said.
“It had a very ceremonial outline.”
