BERLIN: German police said Tuesday they had shut down a “dizzyingly large” child pornography website with hundreds of thousands of users and arrested six people with links to the network.
The men, aged 43 to 69, were suspected of being the “leading figures behind the darkweb platform”, police in the North Rhine-Westphalia region said in a statement.
The website was used “solely” to share pornographic images of children, chief investigator Kai-Arne Gailer told a press conference.
Officials did not provide an estimate for the number of victims affected but said the abusive material shared on the site exclusively depicted girls.
Police arrested the men in nationwide raids carried out at the end of September, seizing huge amounts of material.
Investigators collected 1,517 items of evidence, including laptops, computers and mobile phones, as well as 94 boxes filled with video cassettes and DVDs.
One suspect’s computer contained 13.5 terabytes of data, the equivalent of 3.4 million photos, according to police.
Gailer said the equivalent of about 1,000 terabytes was involved.
Regional interior minister Herbert Reul said the scope of the investigation was “dizzyingly large and extensive”.
The law enforcement operation was a “massive blow” against distributors of child pornography that would have a “lasting effect on the scene”, Gailer said.
Police were still investigating and would now have to comb through the evidence collected, Gailer said.
International law enforcement authorities were also continuing investigations into suspects. “There is no continent that is not affected,“ Gailer said.
