 Good morning ladies and gentlemen. My name is Detective Superintendent Cameron Harsley of State Crime Command, Child Sexual Investigation Unit. I'd firstly like to start off this morning by acknowledging the professionalism and cooperation which the Queensland Police Service Task Force Argos have received from the Toronto Police Service, Child Exploitation Section and also the Postal Inspection Service of the United States. This is in regard to Project Spade which was a worldwide investigation regarding child exploitation material. It was late in 2010 that the Toronto Police discovered a filming firm or company that was producing child exploitation material. This company was not just producing but it was procuring children from European nations to participate in the filming of exploited material. Predominantly the children involved with these films were all boys under the age of 18 years of age. By May 2011 the Toronto Police had enough evidence to conduct a search on the company. It was during the search that 45 terabytes of data were discovered all of which was child exploitation material. To put that in some type of context for you 45 terabytes of data would equate to about 1500 DVDs so it's a significant amount of material. I just say that the activities of the marketing of this company and the procurement of the product went worldwide. It was a market it was a commercial venture it was about exploiting children. Those people that purchased this material from that company and that website were supporting the procurement of children for exploitation. So those that were buying the product were just as guilty as if they were there filming the children themselves. By early 2013 Task Force Argos was engaged in the investigation directly with Toronto Police. It was through this investigation Task Force Argos had two missions. The first mission of course was identify any children within Queensland who were at risk and associated with this filming company. I can say confidently as we stand today there were no children within Queensland exploited through the activity of projects paid. The second mission that Task Force Argos had was of course to look at the supply market those people who were allegedly buying this product off this company. Through that they conducted numerous investigations and executed over 36 search wants on individual residences. Task Force Argos's operation was known as Lima Stampede and with the the tendency of the investigators were able to successfully arrest 32 persons on 208 charges. They're all Queensland people living in Queensland. Can I just go and say one thing about the profile the offenders involved in this operation? This material that was being produced was predominantly well it was all boys. All boys under the age of 18. There's a terminology for pedophiles of people with unsavory interests with children and it's called boy lovers. So predominantly all the offenders or they all were in Queensland were males. They were aged between the age of 22 and 76 years of age. Their employment ranged from being retired or unemployed. There were four teachers involved in this activity. There was one student involved, a nurse, a bank manager and a number of trades persons. During the operation Task Force Argos at this point in time seized more than 65,000 images. There are still some other images outstanding which Task Force Argos are going through. Can I reinforce two very prominent observations during this operation by Task Force Argos? One is that people that are procuring this material have an unsavory interest in children within the state of Queensland. That is unacceptable. The second thing that we noticed during this operation was the procurement of these images is supporting a market of exploiting children around the world. And that is also unacceptable. I'd give a warning to those who want to engage in this activity. It's fairly simple. It's not a matter of if it's matter when Task Force Argos will catch it. If you want to download material like this in this state or if you want to procure children to commit sexual acts within this state, then you will be arrested and placed before the court. It's as simple as that. We have a zero tolerance to this type of activity. And that is predominantly found through the activity of Task Force Argos with the amount of arrests that they recede from the information which we got from the Toronto Police. Any questions? 32 were charged in 208 charges and there were 36 search warrants. In the video, how young was the youngest child? Pre-pubescent, I would say. So we would place it at an age of a 7 or 8 year old. Predominantly the children were probably between 10 and 16 years of age. Some would say that this material was in some way artistic. By no means was this material artistic. There was no common theme, there was no artistic flair to this material. It wasn't on the high end of child exploitation involving sexual acts, but it certainly wasn't artistic. It certainly was focused on a sexual interest in all those children that were displayed on the videos. Were any children removed from their homes in Queensland? No, it wasn't. To date. But I can say from experience, from the work that Task Force Argos do, is that predominantly people that possess this material will be contact offenders. There isn't a high percentage of them that are contact offenders. Why so many in Queensland? Like out of across the country almost more than half, isn't it better here? And I equate that to the excellent work of Task Force Argos detectors specifically on this job because they knew the extent of their exploitation that was going on worldwide. Can I just say that every warrant that we did and every person we spoke to was either arrested or we've got our eye on them. And we don't just go for one target within Argos. We will look at everyone who's associated with that person. There will be no stone unturned by Task Force Argos in getting these people that participate in this activity. The children, the vision of them, are they clearly distressed? Are they clearly being used against their belongings? Some you would say would be a view of uncomfortableness. I've looked at some of the images. I'm appalled by them myself. I would say that you would have no doubt in your mind if you saw them that you would have a sexual interest in children, boys. Are you fear, I know that you said that no children in Queensland were exploited but do you fear it was heading down that track whereby eventually Queensland children would have been the target? Certainly. Companies like this that were operating in Toronto were operating over some period of time. They chose the European companies because the children were easy access. It was easy to pay money to obtain that. But where there's a market, there's a will for children. So I'm confident that if the opportunity existed for these people to exploit the children of Queensland, they would. Do you feel that, I guess, with this we might have broken the back a little bit of this underbelly of child pornography in Queensland? Or is there a lot out there do you think that we still don't know about it? Well, I don't think it's a Queensland issue. I think it's a worldwide issue, child pornography. I don't like using terminology child pornography as child exploitation material. Have we broken the back? No, this just illustrates the market that is out there on a worldwide basis. Like there are people setting up companies to produce child exploitation material. I think the market's flourishing. I think we have got to be vigilant all the time. These children were predominantly from Europe? Were they from Eastern Europe or all over Europe? All over Europe, mainly Russia and Ukraine. We're talking in Queensland about teachers, about students, about nurses. Are they in positions of trust? Do they disgust you? I think people in trust, we put a high value on their morals. I think this illustrates quite clearly that if you have children, I have children myself, you still have to have some parental responsibility. It's very important to risk manage the contact your children have with members of the public or anybody. It's very important for you to communicate with your child every night and it's more important to know the environments in which your children are playing in. This is more common than the average job board. It is. And I think it's a mistrust to think just because somebody is in a position that they can be trusted. Do you just need blue cards? Is it concerning that these people are slipping through the niche? Well, blue cards are a risk management strategy to try and reduce those people with unsavory interest to having contact with children. It's not an end system. The end system is vigilance of our children. It's every parent, wherever you are in Queensland, making sure you know where your child is 24-7 and taking some responsibility for the contact your child has. Is there any information to suggest that these people in Queensland give each other? No, not at the moment, but I would say that from previous experience, from social networking sites, these people are very aware of their online names and their online activity. Do they meet in the coffee shop? No, they don't, but they meet online. Once you get these... Do you go and check whether they're involved in other offenses, especially people like teachers and stuff? Well, through this process, we rigorously have invested and looked at everyone we've looked at, and we don't just look at them once. We have a very close look at them. Have you found any other offenses related to your husband's health? Well, all the people that have been charged have been charged with possession of child exploitation material and like offenses. Are teachers still working as teachers? No, the process is we'll notify the relevant authorities. So, as soon as we arrest somebody with a blue card or in a position like that, they are notified straight away that day. When did you get the file to investigate? Did you say 2013? 2013, we became aware of the information regarding the participants of purchasing these products in Queensland. What month was that? It was January early, 2004. Can you give us an indication of where these people who have been charged are from? Is it Martin Brisbane? Is it the local and the state? Predominantly in the southeast Queensland, mainly because that's where most of the population are, but... Yeah. We'd like you to start placing the court. Those details will be made available after the conference. Obviously, I mean, it is up to the courts now, but, I mean, is there an indication from you guys, I suppose, of what some of these people might be facing in terms of jail terms? I mean, it's out of your hands now and it's up to the law. Well, that's a matter for the courts to decide, not a matter for us. What was the... Was there any particular piece of evidence that stood out in your mind? Was there any particular person that seemed to have an overwhelming huge amount of material? Well, it varies because people often will store the material on their computer or in a storage device. Others will try and use cloud storage or offshore storage facilities. So we have done raids where we may find 2 million images on a computer, or we may do one where we find one image. We don't really care if it's one image or 2 million images. The same result is you'll be facing court. Once you received that initial information from the Canadian police, is it then a matter of you tracing IP addresses, bank accounts? Can you just give us an idea of perhaps how you come to find these people? Yeah, well, Task Force Argos used a number of methodologies. I won't go into all of them, but obviously bank accounts, IP addresses for computers are too often common ways. There are other ways as engaging people online in the covert activity are other ways. Also, we have a number of other methodologies and tools which we have to identify people with this type of material on their computer. From the situation you received this information, did it come to you like, did you receive their online names and then it was a process of going about identifying who the people were behind these on the map? We have very minimal information, mainly account information. Regional breakdown by chance of how many, roughly like, are they in camps, towns or all the kind? We'll supply that after the conference. What have you guys charged known to police previous to 2010? There were a few known to us, but for I suppose of very reasons, not just for exploitation of children. I know we're talking about cleanser, but just to clarify, were there any children in any other states of Australia who were exploited? I believe there were six other children within Australia that were exploited and not as a direct result of the activity of this company in Toronto. But as I said before, the linkage of the people who have an interest in this product, they are often offenders. So they'll often offend against the children that they have contact with them. I can't spoil that detail. Important is that once you get that file to do everything as fast as you can for that reason, that that could be vending. Well, Task Force Argos' first mission, everyone thinks the end state is placing somebody before the court. That's a secondary matter for Task Force Argos. The first thing is identification of children within the State of Queensland. The prosecution, the execution of warrants is the second thing we do. We're identifying any of those children in the images that may remotely reside in this state and us removing them from harm. And that's the first mission we do. The second part of this operation was the prosecution of offenders. Obviously, a lot of parents will see this tonight and will hear about its story today and might be a little bit concerned about sending little Johnny away on the school camp, et cetera, or off to scouts. What is the message to them? Is it that really do some stringent checks or not everyone is that bad? What the parent can do is communicate with their child, have some of those safety messages, make sure that they have an open communication about risks. The second thing if your child's involved in an activity, you'd be asking yourself, is there only one person adult involved in that activity or is there two adults there? So they co-supervised children and that in itself removes the risk to children. So it's about the environment they're going into. You'd say a school camp where there's more than one teacher around, where the opportunity is reduced because there's more adults around. So if I was a parent, I'd be thinking that way and starting to have the conversations about if my child's going to an activity, how many adults will be there and what environment will that child reside in while they're there. Can you receive account information from Canadians at Bank Account Information? Yes. How surprised were the men what the police turned up? I think everyone's surprised when they get knocked by the police. I think what always worries me with this activity is often these people don't see they're doing anything wrong because they seem to have this unsavory interest in child, which they see as some writer passage where it's very wrong. Can you tell us a little bit about their history as I was talking about married men living in the community with a good job? I think the message we've got to get out of this and you'll get the information about where they were and their ages before. There is no stereotype for this type of person. The idea of it being an old man living alone is gone. They're young offenders as young as 22 years of age and we have had them younger and then they go to 78. So there's a spectrum of age, there's a spectrum of sex, male and female. There's a spectrum of their employment and their activities. Personality wise you would not be able to determine whether they are an offender or not. Some are fairly jovial and fairly friendly and fairly nice people on the surface. Are any of them in notable positions within the community? I know we spoke about teachers and that sort of thing but we're not talking like members of council or mayor or anything like that. No. Can I just confirm that all 32 were arrested in Queensland but eight all men or male and female? All males. And that's predominantly if you looked at the material that this company was producing it was boy-loving material. So that's not unusual to have males only involved in this activity if it's boy-loving material. It's quite common. 78. There's no found males but generically we don't exclude females from either being a direct offender or often will find a passive offender who is a female. By that I mean a female that will allow a male to access her children for exploitation. 52 year old a rotten Hillsman that was charged and his occupation is listed as manager. Was he a retail manager or an office manager? Just manager. Hi Cat. Thank you.