Twenty people implicated in an international child sex ring have been arrested in the United States and Europe, the US Customs Service announced today.
"The 20 arrests are all related to using and sexually abusing and exploiting children, often their own children - and then, to compound the crime, publishing the photographs on the Internet and circulating the images among themselves as part of a paedophile ring," Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner told reporters.
Among those arrested were 10 US citizens and 10 other people in Belgium, Denmark, England, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The Customs Service said additional arrests were expected in the United States.
US customs said in a statement that some 45 children between the ages of two and 14 have been rescued from sexual abuse through Operation Hamlet.
Operation Hamlet was launched after Danish police received information from "Save the Children," an Internet watchdog group, regarding online photographs showing a man molesting a nine-year-old girl. The pictures were shared over the Internet with people from the US and other countries, according to Customs.
AFP