Internet: online child abuse network tracked - 70,000 members

The list of enforcement agencies working on the project to bring down the network and arrest its leaders and users reads like a who's who of the international policing community: Australia's AFP, New Zealand Police, US Immigration (ICE), Netherlands Police, Italy's Postal and Communications Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the UK's specialist anti-child-pornography unit, The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

The website had a public face which was, basically, a discussion board. But those posting to the open boards were "vetted" by the organisers and invited to private chat services. It was there that detailed discussion took place about abuse, including violent sexual abuse to children and exchanges of photos and videos were made.

Peter Davies who heads the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre said "these offenders felt anonymous .. but everything they did, everyone they talked to and everything they shared was tracked by the digital footprint."

So far, in the UK, 240 people have been identified and more than 180 of them were taken into custody in the past few days. They are aged from 17 years to a startling 82 years old.

Some of the abusers were parents or in some other form of position of authority over those who were abused. The CEOPC says "they come from all walks of life. They include police officers, scout leaders and teachers." Across the world, 230 children were taken into some form of care. 60 of them are in the UK.

The operation, code named Rescue, has been running since 2007. The recent arrests are not its first successes: so far, 33 people have been convicted as a result of the investigation. But, until yesterday, the scale of the international effort had not been made public: in each of the previous cases, it had been implied that those caught had just been careless or unlucky.

Now, however, it is clear that staff from the units were not only tracking the abusers but also engaging them in discussion so as to identify them and their proclivities.

And it's not over: there is data on thousands of other suspects. The children most deemed at risk have all been rescued. But the unit is under no illusion: there are no doubt other networks, some involving the same targets, that have yet to be identified and more children at risk.