 Welcome everyone to the briefing of Operation Gatekeeper which the Queensland Police Force State Crime Operations Task Force Argos has been conducting. How we got to this point is in January 2010 Task Force Argos detectives from State Crime Operations commenced the investigations in regard to a website that was well known within Australian and other jurisdictions over the world. One of our investigations has led us to an address at Hallensvale on the Gold Coast. Police executed a warrant at that address when they located a 23 year old male person who has since been charged for possessing child exploitation images. That 23 year old male person is also the administrator of that website. Within that website we were able to take control of it and within it we discovered there were 44,000 child exploitation images, some 88,000 postings, a posting being somebody has either made a comment about the images on the website or they have themselves posted a child exploitation material image. From taking possession of that website we were also able to ascertain over 21,000 individual users from 100 countries had accessed that website and either posted images or made comments about those images. Investigations within Queensland led us to execute some 46 warrants across the state leading to the arrest of 21 adult male persons and the dealing of with one juvenile at age 15. We have charged those 21 persons with 86 charges. They either have appeared before the court or presently before the courts. We are also perhaps the best sign of the success of this operation was we were able to locate 29 child victims. Of those 29 child victims one of those children resided here in Brisbane. We were further able to identify four other children in New South Wales through our expert victim identification officer at Task Force Argos. We then identified a further eight child victims in Russia. Another five child victims in Mexico. The other victims resided in the UK and the USA. Can I just make this point that these images are not just images. These images themselves create a demand within the market and a demand which to supply that demand leads to the exploitation of children. So that's the first point I want to make. The second point I want to make that your possession or accessing these websites is adding to that demand market. Behind each one of these images there's a child getting abused. The next point I wish to make about these images is it's quite obvious there's a direct correlation between these images and children being offended. People that possess these images or have an unsavoury interest in these images are usually involved with some type of offending against children. The next point I wish to make about this is most of these offenders in which we have knocked on their doors have been sitting in their home in the security that they think they cannot be touched by law enforcement agencies. Can I please say this that if you're on your computer at home it is no safety for you not being located. Police will follow you into your home either through the images or through the websites which you're accessing and we will knock on your door and prosecute you for those offences. The occupations range from those unemployed to semi-professional people and process workers. There are a number of people with access to children but specifically no teachers. No. What were the ages of the children who were removed from home? The child in Brisbane was 11 years of age. The children within the images age from infants up to adolescents. The children that were removed in other countries such as Russia were all under the age of 16 years of age. Police, when you took over this operation from the House in Helensvale, did you run it out of the House in Helensvale or here in Auckland? No, once we execute the warranted Helensvale we're able to get the material that we needed and we ran it from back here at Task Force Argos. How did you find the child in Brisbane? Through the images. Was it a male child? It was a male child. It was related to the child? It was known to the offender and the offender was actively using the website to access images. So Helensvale man was he actually posting this international website so that his international website basically started in Australia? The website itself is based of a server which is located in Holland in Europe and the individual in Helensvale was the administrator of that site. So he had complete control over the website from here on the Gold Coast. How difficult was that job for Argos to protect the child from the other thing? Well we didn't actually run the site. Often when we obtained the details of the site and had the administrator we were able to very quickly close the site down and freeze it. Obviously we don't want a site like that running. So the primary thing was to close it down but in closing the site down one of our other priorities was ensuring that we encapsulated as much evidence as we could from that website which we did. I mean this could be a massive job. Most people think of people who access child porn. You think of older men. But the people you think child porn is in here in juvenile and a lot of them are 21, 19. Are you surprised by the ages of the alleged family? No I'm not. I think everyone has this stereotype that it's an older male person. This crime class is committed by people from different ages, different walks of life and different sexes as well. How did you come across this problem then? Was it a tip off from international or was this by your own good work? It was through Task Force Argos's efforts. I won't talk about the mythology about how we did it because we'd like to keep that to ourselves. But over the last few years can I just say this that the technologies have advanced in this area but alongside the abilities of Task Force Argos and the police have also advanced and we've become quite acute in our methodology to target these type of people. What age would be the youngest child found in USF Wales? I haven't got those details right. Are you expecting further arrest? Yes we are. We have a number of computers that are still being forensically examined and a number of inquiries running out so we predict there will be further arrest. Is that being to state and internationally important? Yes. Are any of the 21 accused repeated then? No. Have any of them been dealt with through the courts? Have they used it finalised for any of the sentences? I believe some have been finalised. No I don't, sorry. When was the Helen family arrested? And then when did you... Shut down the side. Okay it was in January 2010 and between January 2010 and now a lot of those people that were on that side and especially when we initially took that side people were actively still trying to gain access and make postings to that side which we of course kept that to ourselves with the idea that we could still capture IP addresses of people trying to access that at side or download material. So even... Let me try. As soon as you arrested the Helen's bar man you immediately just age like shut it down but people could still access that side. People would still try and access the side but they could not access the child exploitation material. Well we've got IP addresses or addresses from over 100 countries and the offenders are predominantly in, as I said, Russia, Mexico, UK and USA. Did you go along to any of the sentences? No I didn't. Did anyone read what the reaction was from these people? I think the normal reaction of these type of people is they think they're safe in their home behind a computer. They see it as a victimless crime it is not a victimless crime. Each one of those images is a crime scene photo of a child getting abused. This has had some impact on the successes over the years but it doesn't seem to have stopped up a bit. Is there ever going to be an end to this? I hope there is going to be an end to it but as we've seen over the years the market is still there. People are still accessing this material. People are still producing this material and placing it on websites. How would you describe the images? No, did I tell you before but in terms of severity I know in the past they range from... I think images, if you were to say to me is something bad or really bad. I think it's all bad. I think any image that displays a child in a sexual position or sexual connotation is a bad image. How big is the problem in Australia and how do we compare the rest of the world? I think in Australia we're very successful in this crime type. I think comparatively around the world it's wherever the websites are around the world which is worldwide. That's why they call it WWW. So the problem is worldwide and I don't think Australia is any worse than any other country. Can you pass on the IP addresses if you have any idea of made arrests based on that? Yes, we have. We've passed it on to our counterparts and other jurisdictions. We've worked in partnership with Australian Federal Police and also other law enforcement agencies overseas. No, they've made any arrests overseas based on what you've given them. Yes, I have. I believe Russia for one. Not any other? Mexico. What sort of conditions have they been in? What sort of conditions have they been in? Are they held or...? No, notoriously these type of people will be friend children. They will be friend their own children, unfortunately, or relatives' children or family friends' children. They'll access children any way they can. When was the child physically removed from that situation if he hadn't unleashed on how long he's been going on for? I don't know exactly the details of how long he's been going on for, but when we came aware of it last year, we removed the child straight away. No, I don't. Do you know how many figures have been charged in the country? Australia-wide. I know the figures for Queensland. I haven't got the Australia-wide figures. Great on-scale child exploitation websites. Would this be the largest, one of the largest to have been shot down? I don't think it's the largest, but I think what we've seen here in Australia is predominantly these websites have been based overseas. The administrators have been overseas. But here in Queensland for the first time, I believe, we've actually seen a homegrown administrator on a website with a significant site with postings from numerous countries, 100 countries, as I've said. So in Queensland, do you think it's much more investigational? Yes, we did. We made referrals to all the other agencies overseas. We work in partnership with those other agencies, and we're making nearly daily contact with those. So how does the website work? Do you have to have a password to get into there? No. You can log on, and you can become a user, and then you can access, make postings and comments, just like most other websites. How does the website interact with other child exploitation websites? Sometimes these websites link to each other. Sometimes they stand alight. Well, I don't think it's right. That's right. So from the 44,000 images we've taken possession of from the website, we then went and executed warrants, 46 warrants in total. And from those 46 warrants, we've taken possession of 3,000 and 7, 307,000 images. You said sometimes they link to other websites. Sometimes they don't. In this particular case, did this website have connections to other websites? No. Have you made any commercial benefit out of these websites? I think all websites, as an administrator, can make a form of money, but notoriously with these websites, they're not set up for a commercial venture. They're usually set up for the enjoyment, if you could call it enjoyment, of people, and to facilitate the trading of images. This man, what was his idea of doing it for you? Well, I don't know what he specifically was doing it for. Unable to answer that. The 23 oil that Hallensvale is very IT savvy, I'd call it. Very articulate with the use and administration of websites and the downloading of images. Like this, and a web for the international website would be based in a Queensland city like that. I think the strong message we've got from this operation Gatekeeper is that it no longer sits offshore in Australia. This type of venture can occur in our own backyard in Queensland. And that's the, I suppose, the characteristics of websites in the IT world this day that we have to deal with. We don't know exactly. At least 12 months. I do. I think there needs to be some community understanding that, you know, the viewing and accessing of these images is an offence. And as I said before that the more important message to get out to people is that if you are viewing or possessing these images you're creating a market for children to be exploited. We've had one other in Queensland on the north coast some three years ago, I believe. Not on the scale? Not on the scale.