International child porn ring transmitted acts live on web

CHICAGO - US and Canadian authorities said today they had cracked an international child pornography network that in some cases transmitted molestations live over the internet.

"These are the worst imaginable forms of child pornography," said US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, adding that one case involved the abuse of a toddler less than 18 month old.

Twenty-seven people from nine US states and Canada, Australia and Britain, are charged with possession, receipt, distribution and manufacture of child pornography in connection with the case, authorities said.

Twenty-six of the suspects have been arrested and one is still at large.

"This international undercover investigation revealed an insidious network that engaged in worldwide trafficking in child pornography, including live molestations of children transmitted over the internet," Gonzales said.

Authorities said they have identified seven victims including the toddler whose molestation in April by a suburban Chicago man was transmitted live via an internet chat room to someone using the screen name "Big_Daddy619."

Internet child pornography has evolved from commercial sites with repeated material to new material traded viewer-to-viewer, said Julie Myers, a US Homeland Security Department official who appeared at a news conference with Gonzales.

"We see child molestation on demand through streaming to chat rooms," she said. "The children are getting younger and the images are getting more and more violent and graphic."

Tony Warr, acting chief of police services in Toronto, told the briefing that the case had its roots in a May 2005 arrest in Alberta.

Four people are charged with molesting the children, making the resulting images available in the chat room called "Kiddypics & Kiddyvids," which facilitated trading of thousands of images and videos, officials said.

Making child pornography carries a minimum 15-year prison sentence. The other charges call for minimum sentences of at least five years.

- REUTERS