337 arrested in crackdown on child sex abuse website

HUNDREDS of suspected sex offenders have been arrested in a crackdown on one of the world’s largest ‘dark web’ sites hosting child abuse images.

Some 337 suspects have been arrested globally, including 18 Britons, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said yesterday.

The international operation came after officers investigating one of Britain’s worst online paedophiles discovered he used the abuse forum Welcome to Video, which offered more than 250,000 abuse clips for sale.

Cambridge University graduate Dr Matthew Falder was considered a brilliant geophysicist with a promising academic career. But on the dark web, he blackmailed at least 47 victims into sending pictures of themselves performing depraved acts, before sharing them on the site. Last year Falder was jailed for 25 years after admitting 137 offences including encouraging child rape.

The landmark case sparked a major investigation into paedophiles across the globe who used Welcome To Video – which has now been taken down by an international taskforce set up by the NCA. Officers have traced cryptocurrency payments to 337 paedophiles arrested in 38 countries so far, among them 18 suspects held in the UK.

Users had made more than one million downloads from the site. Yesterday US prosecutors filed multiple charges against the man who allegedly ran it, Jong Woo Son, 23, from South Korea, who has already been jailed in Korea for child pornography offences.

In the UK, seven men have already been convicted, including Kyle Foxx, 26, who was jailed for 22 years for raping a five-yearold boy and posting a video on Welcome To Video of himself sexually abusing a girl aged three.

The NCA’s Nikki Holland said: ‘Dark web child sex offenders... cannot hide from law enforcement. The NCA is relentless in pursuing them.’

Andy Burrows, of the NSPCC, added: ‘ We need the platforms where children are being groomed and abused to be regulated so they are safer, and tech needs to change to protect the child.’