Ten-Country Child Porn Sweep

Police trying to crack an international child pornography ring flourishing on the Internet arrested 12 people Wednesday and seized computers and large quantities of data in 10 countries, the international police organization Interpol said.

The sweep was part of Operation Artus, coordinated by Interpol, which is based in the southeastern French city of Lyon.

The seized materials are to be analyzed "in an effort to identify and find the child victims who were sexually abused in the production of the material and save them from further abuse," said a statement from Interpol.

Sweeps were carried out across the globe, and included authorities from Britain, Canada, Finland, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States

The U.S. Customs Service said that one person was arrested in the United States and that search warrants involving eight people were executed in seven states.

The investigation began in November 2001, when agents of the German National Police, using evidence gathered from a search warrant, discovered that a German man had been exchanging child pornography over the Internet, U.S. Customs said. The man provided nicknames of some members of a group that German authorities believed were involved in the exchange of child pornography.

The German investigation allowed authorities to identify suspected members of a wider child pornography ring.

The targets of the U.S. investigation included a military pilot, a registered nurse and an artist, according to U.S. Customs in Washington.

"A common aim of members was to find and exchange child pornography in DVD quality movie file format," U.S. Customs said. "As a requirement, members had to offer new child pornography material from time to time to remain part of the group."

Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble referred in a statement to the sale and distribution of child pornography via the Internet as "vile and degrading criminal activity."