19 men in Australia arrested on charges of child sex abuse — Operation Bakis continues
The Australian Federal Police arrested 19 men who were charged with online child sexual abuse and participating in a network of international pedophiles. The arrests — which are related to some in the United States, as well — arose from a joint investigation with the FBI, the Australian agency announced in a press release Tuesday.
The global investigation, called Operation Bakis, started in 2021, after FBI Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were shot and killed while executing a search warrant for a man suspected of having child abuse material and participating in that pedophile network, NBC News said. Three other agents were wounded.
The total number of people arrested as a result of the operation has reached 98, CNN said, including 79 arrests, 65 indictments and 43 convictions in the U.S.
Thirteen children have been removed from harm due to the operation, “some who were directly abused and others as a safety precaution,” according to The Guardian.
The press release quoted Helen Schneider, commander of the Australian Federal Police: “The success of Operation Bakis was only possible because of the close working relationship between the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation and the FBI, and our dedicated personnel who never give up working to identify children who are being sexually assaulted or living with someone who is sharing child abuse material.”
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Operation Bakis
After the murders of Alfin and Schwartzenberger in 2021, the FBI showed the Australian center evidence that a “peer-to-peer network allegedly sharing child abuse material on the dark web” had reached suspected Australian individuals, NBC News said.
According to the news release, pedophiles in the network have a high degree of computer knowledge and use encrypted online software to:
Anonymously share files.
Chat through message boards.
Access websites undetected.
Search and distribute child abuse material.
All arrests made were based on more than 211 global “lead packages” that the FBI provided to local law enforcement agencies, The Guardian said.
Schneider told CNN, “Some of the children (who were saved) were known to the men who were arrested,” and some network members have been suspected of committing offenses for more than a decade.
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The suspected offenders in Australia were between ages 32-81. Two of them have already been sentenced, per the news release.
In a separate statement, FBI legal attaché Nitiana Mann said, “We are proud of our longstanding relationship with the Australian Federal Police resulting in 19 Australian men facing criminal prosecution as a result of our collaborative investigation,” according to NBC News.
Mann added that, “The complexity and anonymity of these platforms means that no agency or country can fight these threats alone.” Additionally, “As we continue to build bridges through collaboration and teamwork, we can ensure the good guys win and the bad guys lose.”
Schneider said, “I think this outcome should definitely serve as a warning to those who are preying on our most vulnerable,” per The Guardian.
