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.
The FBI agreed with that sentiment. “The complexity and anonymity of these platforms means that no agency or country can fight these threats alone,” FBI legal attaché Nitiana Mann said in a the FBI’s statement. “As we continue to build bridges through collaboration and teamwork, we can ensure the good guys win and the bad guys lose.”
The Australian authorities also commented on the sophistication of the platforms used by the abusers, as well as their vast technological knowledge. They said suspects “used software to anonymously share files, chat on message boards and access websites within the network” and that the lengths that these alleged offenders went to in order to avoid detection makes them especially dangerous – the longer they avoid detection the longer they can perpetuate the cycle of abuse.”
Just hearing how vast the network perpetuating child sex abuse material are and how sophisticated and crafty the perpetrators are fills me with dread and makes me shudder. As we’ve seen from the senseless murders of Agents Alfin and Schwartzenberger, these horrible abusers will even commit murder to avoid arrest. But then I read again, that nearly 100 bad guys were arrested by the tireless efforts of the good guys in both nations, with dozens of children saved, and I feel some hope.
Kudos to all law enforcement fighting the good fight to protect our children! And let’s not forget that we can be in the fight with them. If you see something, say something! Let’s all do our duty and report any suspicions we have of anyone using child sex abuse material.
