Police crack global child porn ring

LONDON, England -- Detectives have cracked one of the world's largest Internet child pornography networks in a joint operation in which 107 men were arrested in 12 countries.

The porn ring -- which police said spread across Europe, the United States and Australia -- was run by a group of paedophiles operating what they called The Wonderland Club.

UK police said it involved some of the most degrading images of children ever seen.

A UK order banning publication of details of the case was lifted on Wednesday as a court near London heard that seven British men had admitted their part in the child pornography ring.

British police became aware of Wonderland after detectives in the United States investigating a paedophile network found a connection with three Britons.

Members of the club, who described themselves as "the cream of paedophiles", had to send in at least 10,000 indecent images of children to join.

Simultaneous raids took place around the world on September 2, 1998 with over 100 arrests in the United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the United States.

A library of 750,000 computer images of more than 1,200 victims and 1,800 computerised videos depicting children suffering sexual abuse were found.

Police believe they now know the identities of about 180 members of Wonderland, which they believe was set up in November 1996.

Detective Alex Wood, who headed the British inquiry, said Wonderland was a club set up by paedophiles worldwide and its chairman was Harry Mudd, an American who has since been brought to justice.

Seven members arrested in Britain have now pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring with others to distribute indecent images of children.

They will be sentenced at Kingston Crown Court in south west London next month and face a maximum three years in prison.

An eighth man arrested in Britain -- Steven Ellis, a computer salesman from Earlham, Norwich, England, -- was charged but committed suicide in January 1999.

'Stomach-churning'

Wonderland members needed three separate passwords to access the degrading images from registered computers.

Wood, of the UK National Crime Squad, said: "We are talking about serious sexual abuse to young children of both sexes -- and to say that it is stomach-churning does not quite describe well enough what it is.

"We can only guess and say that the Wonderland Club was the principal club worldwide. We cannot say how many paedophiles use the Internet."

Wood said information about the victims in the images had been sent to Interpol and police forces around the world.

"One of the points of the operation has been to try to protect the children. We have pictures of children in hotel rooms and private environments -- there is no way of telling where they came from."

Wood said the paedophiles involved called themselves "the cream of paedophiles."

He said: "On the face of it some would have had normal lives but it was not in any way possible to stumble into this world.

"The youngest victim was about three months and other victims aged up to about 18 years."

Wood said he hoped the maximum sentence for such offences would be boosted from three to 10 years under the Criminal Justice and Courts Services Bill which is now under discussion in the UK.

Reuters contributed to this report.