German police smash darknet child porn network with ‘400,000 members’

Investigators added that the months-long, German-instigated operation had been coordinated by Europol and supported by law enforcement in the Netherlands, Sweden, the US and Canada. — Dreamstime/TNS

BERLIN: German police said on May 3 they had shut down “one of the biggest darknet child pornography platforms in the world” and arrested four of its members in a series of raids in mid-April.

The platform, named as “Boystown”, had existed since 2019, counted over 400,000 members and was “set up for the worldwide exchange of child pornography, in particular images of the abuse of boys”, federal police said in a statement.