International operation takes down major child sex abuse site

German investigators said Wednesday they had dismantled a major streaming site for images of child sex abuse in an international operation coordinated by Europol.

The vast operation led by German police targeted the "KidFlix" platform and was supported by authorities in 38 countries.

Investigators were able to identify almost 1,400 individual suspects who used the site and made 79 arrests in connection with the investigation, Europol said.

Established in 2021, "KidFlix" was "one of the largest paedophile platforms in the world" with some 1.8 million users, said the agency based in The Hague.

The site is said to have hosted more than 91,000 unique videos of child sex abuse on the so-called darknet, totalling around 6,288 hours of film.

The operation was "one of the biggest blows against child pornography in recent years, if not ever", the deputy head of the Bavarian criminal police, Guido Limmer, told a press conference.

The uploaded videos included "unimaginably horrific acts of abuse against children, toddlers and even babies that were made available in high resolution", Limmer said.

Unlike other websites hosting images of child sex abuse, "KidFlix" allowed users to stream videos as well as download files, Europol said.

Users gained access to videos using tokens bought using cryptocurrency or earned through tasks, such as categorising videos or uploading abusive material.

For Europol, the strike against "KidFlix" was the "largest operation ever handled" by the agency to combat child sexual exploitation.

In the action carried out in March, authorities searched locations in 31 countries.

Investigators confiscated over 3,000 electronic devices in the course of their investigation, which began in 2022.

A joint raid by German and Dutch authorities in March resulted in the seizure of a hard drive with around 72,000 videos of child sex abuse.

German authorities said they had endeavoured to identify potential victims of sex abuse, and had intervened on 96 occasions to safeguard children.

In 12 instances, German authorities had been able to stop ongoing child sex abuse. In all, 39 children had been protected during the investigation.

In one case, German police in 2024 arrested a 36-year-old man who had "offered his young son for games", Limmer said.

The man from the eastern German city of Chemnitz was identified because he had searched for abuse images on the streaming platform.

Investigators were also able to identify a "serial" abuser in the United States, Limmer said.

The "bulk" of the suspects identified by investigators were between 20 and 40 years old, with the average age around 31, senior prosecutor Thomas Goger said at the press conference.

The oldest user identified was in their seventies, while the youngest had been born in 2006, said Goger from the Bamberg public prosecutor's office.

Suspects were typically people who had been "on the darknet for a long time", he said.

The investigation into the platform was "not at an end", and the operator of the site was yet to be identified.

"Together with our partners at home and abroad, we have secured massive amounts of data, all of which need to be evaluated," he said.