70 arrested in NSW web child porn crackdown - News - Security

A policeman, a teacher and sports administrator are three of 70 people arrested across Australia after a six month investigation into child pornography.

Operation Centurion involved the Australian Federal Police and state police forces, and uncovered several cases of child abuse and the widespread use of child pornography over the internet.

According to Fairfax newspapers, 70 people have been arrested to date by Operation Centurion, and another 20 people issued with summonses to appear in court on child pornography charges.

Those arrested included 59-year-old Alan Lilburne Melchert, a board member with the West Australian Sports Federation, and former federal policeman Michael Edward Hatch, 38.

A primary school teacher and youth worker have also been arrested.

During the investigation police examined computers, discs, USB sticks and DVDs during the execution of 123 search warrants.

One of the men arrested had a collection of 50,000 child abuse images, Fairfax reported.

Those arrested range in age from 19 to 81.

Operation Centurion is the largest Australian investigation into child pornography.

The investigation was triggered after a hacker posted 99 child porn images on a European website, which attracted 12 million hits from 150,000 computer users in just 76 hours — meaning 81 per cent of viewers clicked through every image.

Of those, 2883 computer IP addresses were traced back to Australia.

Information about the users was provided to Australian authorities by Interpol.

"It shows you the power of the internet as a communication tool," AFP Assistant Commissioner Andrew Colvin said.

"We are dealing with a medium where communication is so quick and so broad that something like this could happen.

"It is stunning that millions of people around the world can commit an offence and access child abuse images in one hit, at the same time."

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