Police have confirmed a New Zealand connection to a child abuse website recently closed down by British authorities.
More than 700 suspects from around the world were identified after British police arrested website host Timothy Cox last September.
The 10-month operation investigating the site, on which people swapped
alarming images of child abuse and watched live child abuse scenes, saw more than 30 children rescued from abusers.
Cox was last month given an indeterminate prison sentence.
Visitors to the chatroom came from 35 countries and Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Holden, the national co-ordinator of the adult sexual assault and child abuse team, confirmed yesterday that New Zealand was among that list.
"We did have a New Zealander involved with that, like we have with just about all the others," Mr Holden said.
"We are having these type of operations unfolding all the time and respond to them in an ongoing way.
"We have some interest in that operation, we have some interest in lots of other operations. We are locking people up when and how they come to our attention."
No charges have yet been laid in New Zealand relating to the British website, but investigations were continuing, Mr Holden said.
Ecpat, a group which combats child abuse, estimates more than 20 child pornography cases are before the courts at any time, with a successful conviction registered at least once a fortnight.
Mr Holden said people were charged and sentenced at different stages of investigations into child abuse rings, so it was better to think of police investigations into internet-based child abuse as ongoing work rather than individual operations.
"They are in a thousand rings. One of them gets uncovered, we clean up as much as we can," Mr Holden said.
Earlier this week, police revealed details of Operation Smasher, which has so far seen 26 search warrants executed and seven people arrested.
Cox's site, "Kids the Light of Our Lives", was shut down after an undercover Canadian policeman came across the chatroom and alerted British police.
He was convicted of possessing more than 75,000 images of child abuse.
