German police smash darknet child porn platform

German police shut down the international child pornography platform "Boystown" after three alleged administrators and another suspect, all German citizens, were arrested in mid-April, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) announced on Monday, reported Xinhua.

The darknet platform had been operational since at least June 2019 and was globally used by more than 400,000 members for exchanging child pornography, the BKA said in a statement.

After several months of global investigations in cooperation with Interpol and national law enforcement agencies from the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, the United States and Canada, German police arrested a 40-year-old man from Paderborn and a 49-year-old man from Munich, the statement said.

Following an international arrest warrant, a 58-year-old German living in Paraguay was also arrested and would be accordingly handed over to authorities in Germany, according to the BKA.

"Those who prey on the weakest are nowhere safe," said Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer on Twitter in response to the arrests, stressing that the German government would hold perpetrators accountable and "do what is humanly possible to protect children from such repugnant crimes."

In addition to the technical implementation of the darknet site, the main suspects allegedly gave advice to members of the platform on how to minimize the risk of detection by law enforcement agencies, according to the BKA.

The fourth arrest, a 64-year-old man from Hamburg, had been registered on the platform since July 2019 and was accused as "one of the most active users," posting 3,500 pieces of child pornography content, said the statement.