Police have arrested seven
people following a three-year investigation into an
international network of paedophiles, sources said on Tuesday.
The suspects allegedly produced and exchanged child
pornography resulting from the abuse of dozens of minors via the
deep web before the gang was dismantled.
For the first time in Italy, they face prosecution for
alleged transnational criminal association for paedophilia and
child pornography.
The investigation was led by Italian postal police experts
coordinated by the Rome anti-mafia department and supported by
Europol's European Cybercrime Center di Europol.
The probe saw constant cooperation with the FBI and
Australian police in Queensland, where noted paedophile Shannon
McCoole was arrested in 2014 along with his two deputies, a
Dutchman and a Danish man, to whom the Italian network was
directly linked, police said.
The Italian postal police probe enabled them to give
Europol several leads towards identifying several dozen minors
who have been the victims of sex abuse and luring via the
Internet.
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