Ninety-eight suspects in both the United States and Australia are under arrest in a child sex abuse case that first gained public attention with the shocking murder of two brave FBI agents in Florida in 2021. Special agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were fatally shot while attempting to serve a warrant on a suspect in Sunrise, Florida. Their tragic murders didn’t stop their important work, however. Instead it gave their fellow agents motivation to move the case forward and even expand it into an international probe.
Now all those efforts have come to fruition with arrests in two countries, thousands of miles apart. The alleged perpetrators are said to have taken part in an illegal online platform where members collaborate to share child sex abuse images on the dark web.
Australian Federal Police, working in conjunction with the FBI, have arrested 19 suspects and removed 13 Australian children from harm over the course of their investigation. Two suspects have already been sentenced and the remaining suspects cases are making their way through the Australian justice system. Meanwhile in the U.S., the FBI has arrested 79 suspects and 43 of them have already been convicted of various child sex abuse charges.
Close cooperation between the agencies was very necessary to get these criminals behind bars. “The success of Operation Bakis was only possible because of the close working relationship between the AFP-led ACCCE [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,” said Australian Federal Police Commander Helen Schneider in a statement.