World's biggest child sex abuse ring smashed

The operation already identified 670 suspects and 230 abused children, and is still ongoing.

The UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), which launched the inquiry, confirmed intelligence involving five suspects had been passed to Lothian and Borders Police, eight to Strathclyde, and two to the Scottish Crime and Drugs Enforcement Agency (SCDEA).

A total of 121 Britons have been arrested, including school teachers, taxi drivers, and IT consultants, with 33 of those convicted of offences relating to child pornography. It was not known last night whether the Scottish suspects are among those arrested or convicted.

Operation Rescue was made public after the Dutch owner of the website, Amir Ish-Hurwitz, 37, was jailed in the Netherlands on Tuesday. Ceop has identified a further 240 British suspects, aged 17 to 82.

"People can expect a knock on the door at any time," warned senior investigating officer Kelvin Lay. Most of the hundreds of users of the site would be arrested, Mr Lay added. The 230 child victims, including 60 in the UK, have been rescued from what police described as "very serious crimes on a truly global basis".

Along with the Netherlands and the UK, suspects have been identified in Australia, Italy, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil and Thailand.

Peter Davies, chief executive of Ceop, said: "The scale and success of Operation Rescue has broken new ground.

"Not only is it one of the largest operations of its kind to date, and the biggest we have led, it also demonstrates the impact of international law enforcement agencies working together with one single objective - to safeguard children and bring offenders to justice.

"What we have shown is that while these offenders felt anonymous in some way because they were using the internet to communicate, the technology was actually being used against them.

"Everything they did online, everyone they talked to or anything they shared could be, and was, tracked by following the digital footprint."

A Scottish child protection charity last night welcomed the arrests, which it said would help protect other children from being abused for the creation of pornographic photographs and videos.

Anne Houston, chief executive at Children 1st, said: "Behind every online image there is a real child who has suffered. People who download often thousands of these photos and videos create demand for new images which are supplied through the exploitation of children."

The website masqueraded as a forum where members could chat. In reality, once members had made contact, they used private links to exchange images of children.

Among them, was scoutmaster John McMurdo, 36, who pleaded guilty to 14 counts of producing and distributing child pornography at a hearing at Plymouth Crown Court, last month.

Mr Wainwright said the results of the three-year crackdown were "phenomenal" and praised analysts at Europol's headquarters for infiltrating the sophisticated computer codes designed to cover the traces of those using the online forum to meet up or exchange illegal images of children.

"I am proud of the exceptional work of our experts in helping police authorities around the world to record these ground-breaking results."The safeguarding of so many vulnerable children is particularly rewarding."

Covert British and Australian police infiltrated the boylover.net site in 2007 to try to identify those who posed the highest risk to children.

Ceop provided intelligence to the Royal Thai Police, in February 2008, about British nationals who were suspected of committing child abuse in their country.

This led ultimately to Operation Naga in November 2008, during which four suspects were arrested.

However, it was only after the prosecution of Ish-Hurwitz, that police made it public.

"We could have publicised this earlier, or later, but once the website owner was in court it was obvious that information would emerge," a Dutch police spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Mr Davies confirmed that one of the suspects arrested in Britain is a woman.

He said: "I think one of the key messages from this operation is that the internet is not a safe haven for criminals.

"It is not a free place to operate criminally. My advice to young people is to think carefully when they go on the internet because they don't necessarily know who they are speaking to - and nor did some of these offenders, who found they were actually making contact with members of our international police team."

Lothian and Borders Police and the SCDEA referred queries back to Ceop.

A Strathclyde Police spokeswoman said: "Strathclyde Police is aware of Operation Rescue and has and will continue to work in partnership with Ceop, and other law enforcement agencies, in the support and progression of this international operation."

In numbers

121 Britons have been arrested as part of the operation.

33 of them have been convicted of offences relating to child pornography.

230 child victims have been identified.

70,000 people were members of the website boylover.net.

4,000 reports have been passed from Europol to police forces.

30 countries are involved in the investigation.