Two of the men have been sentenced and others remain before the courts. The FBI tipped off the AFP about Australian members of a network allegedly sharing child abuse material on the dark web.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 The AFP has coordinated a joint investigation,
00:04 which has resulted in 13 children being rescued
00:07 and the arrest of 19 men.
00:10 We will allege that these men were members
00:12 of a technologically sophisticated
00:15 online child abuse network
00:17 that were operating across the country.
00:19 Operation Backus kicked off in 2022
00:24 as a result of information that was provided by the FBI
00:28 to the ACE in relation to Australian members
00:32 of a peer-to-peer network
00:34 allegedly sharing child abuse material online.
00:38 This has been a complex investigation.
00:41 Members of this network were using encryption
00:44 and other methods to avoid law enforcement detection
00:47 whilst they were sharing videos
00:48 and files of child abuse material.
00:50 In Australia, the AFP-led ACE
00:54 has nationally coordinated Operation Backus.
00:58 We worked closely with our state and territory partners,
01:01 including ACT Policing, the Queensland Police Service,
01:04 New South Wales Police Force, South Australia Police,
01:07 Tasmania Police, and Western Australia Police Force.
01:10 To date, 19 Australian men have been charged
01:14 with a total of 138 offences.
01:17 And as I mentioned earlier,
01:19 13 children have been removed from further harm.
01:23 Whilst many of these men are still before the court process,
01:28 I can advise that two of them have been sentenced to jail,
01:31 one in the ACT for just under 15 years
01:34 and one in New South Wales for five years.
01:37 Viewing, distributing,
01:39 and producing child abuse material is a horrific crime.
01:46 And the lengths that this network went to
01:48 to avoid detection is an indication
01:51 of just how dangerous they were.
01:53 The longer people like this avoid detection,
01:56 it means the longer the cycle of abuse continues.
01:59 This was a sophisticated network.
02:02 And while we have charged 19 people,
02:04 the AFP and our partners do not rule out
02:07 further arrests in relation to this matter.
02:10 The success of Operation Backus
02:12 demonstrates the unique ability of the AFP
02:15 to connect with its partners in law enforcement
02:19 on a national level and connect those
02:21 to our international partners like the FBI.
02:24 (silence)
02:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]