Australian police ran the world’s biggest child sex abuse website for almost a year to catch hundreds of paedophiles.
During this time, detectives shared dozens of images of children being abused and posted hundreds of messages posing as paedophiles to maintain their cover.
Queensland Police unit Taskforce Argos took over ‘Child’s Play’ last October when its founders were arrested, and spearheaded the international covert operation.
Queensland police at Taskforce Argos, including investigator Paul Griffiths (pictured) ran the world’s biggest child sex abuse website for almost a year to catch hundreds of paedophiles
The site at its height had more than 1 million profiles – double the 427,000 it had in January, three months after the police started running it.
About 4,000 of those were active users and included about 100 ‘producers’ who rape children or film others doing so, and distribute the photos and video.
But despite allowing paedophiles to share thousands of child porn images, and even sharing it themselves, police say it was worth catching their targets.
‘We have one goal and that is to stop the sexual abuse of children. We will do whatever we can within our legislative authority to achieve that,’ taskforce leader Jonathan Rouse told VG.
‘Sharing any such image is an abuse of that child. However, it is something we can justify as being for the greater good and to prevent ongoing abuse of children.
‘I hope they understand that we are trying to catch as many offenders as possible.’
The Norwegian newspaper uncovered the undercover police Operation Artemis three months after they took over Child’s Play.
Inspector Rouse and his colleague Paul Griffiths met VG’s reporter in a Brisbane pub and were shocked their involvement was discovered.
They took over after Child’s Play founder Benjamin ‘WarHead’ Faulkner, 26, was arrested in the U.S. in September 2016
Artemis was more than a year in the making, after Argos and other agencies identified its admins as Benjamin ‘WarHead’ Faulkner and Patrick ‘CrazyMonk’ Falte.
Police waited months for the pair to meet, as they sometimes did, after Faulkner, 26, drove from North Bay, Canada, to Manassas, New York, to meet Falte, 27, who travelled from Nashville.
There they raped a four-year-old year provided by one of their users, who filmed the whole abuse as he had done on other occasions.
The pair were arrested early the next morning on October 3, 2016, and gave up the usernames, passwords, and encryption keys police needed.
‘He could hardly wait to talk. On the web, they sound tough and talk about how they’re ready if the cops come,’ Mr Griffiths said.
‘But when a police officer kicked the door off its hinges, pointed a weapon at him and ordered him to lie on the floor, it became clear to this Canadian that he was a long way from home.’
From there, Argos officers including Mr Griffiths assumed their identities, posting as them and managing their massive, perverted empire.
Argos is headed up Inspector Jonathan Rouse (pictured), who said the taskforce would do anything in its power to catch paedophiles
The Brisbane team was given the job not just, because it was one of few in the world with the skills, but because there were less restrictions on their methods under Australian law.
With permission from a judge, investigators could break the law by posting images and messages and continue to run the site.
But assuming the identities of twisted child sex offenders affected even seasoned operators who have hunted hundreds of paedophiles.
‘Anyone who says they haven’t cried in this job is lying. You give a part of yourself the job, and that part becomes a friend of those you’re investigating,’ another Argos member who declined to be named told VG.
‘When we were done with one of our recent operations, it felt like I had locked up all my friends.’
The other founder was Patrick ‘CrazyMonk’ Falte, 27, and both were jailed for life last month for running the site and raping a four-year-old girl
Mr Griffiths said to convince thousands of users he was Faulkner and Falte he had to study the punctuation they used, as well as the emoticons and other characters.
Even the typos they regularly made needed to be replicated along with vocabulary, tone, and style of writing.
‘You need to understand how he feels. It’s destructive. Really difficult. I have been working in this field for 22 years,’ he said.
‘Seeing pictures has no effect on me anymore. But to sit online and talk like one of these guys… Every time I’ve done it, I feel like I have to take a shower afterwards.’
They had to work fast as every day without a post from Faulkner, the site’s leader, made its members increasingly nervous.
‘Did anybody hear from WarHead within the last 7 days? I’m waiting for a pm from him. Nothing happens,’ one wrote.
Finally Argos was confident they could convince its users, and made a post to explain Faulkner’s absence as reassure users.
‘Phew, what a month that was!. A month of my life that I won’t get back. Although technically most of the really screwed up s**t happened in October, not September, hence my late foray into this month,’ they wrote.
‘Sorry again about the late arrival but I did ask the Staff team to step in and cover for me in my enforced absences.’
The next big test was the monthly update, which was mandatory because missing it would signal that Child’s Play was compromised.
Assuming the identities of twisted child sex offenders affected even seasoned operators who have hunted hundreds of paedophiles
It also had to include with at least two child abuse images, which the team wrestled with providing but ultimately did.
‘My main motivation is to identify the children and get them out of their horrible situation. That’s how I manage to work with it,’ Mr Griffth said.
Argos wrote a post about upgrades to the site to make it more secure, ending with a chilling paragraph they knew would be convincing.
‘I hope that some of you were able to give a special present to the little ones in your lives, and spend some time with them. It’s a great time of year to snuggle up near a fire, and make some memories.’
The team was at peace with what they had to do between last October and when the site was shut down in September when Faulkner and Falte were convicted.
During that time, a thread posted two weeks after they took over with images of an eight-year-old girl being raped was viewed 770,617 times.
Hetty Johnston, founder of child protection group Bravehearts, said she supported Argos’ tactics because ‘this is a war’
Inspector Rouse and Mr Griffiths said their work used techniques that were never applied before and had unforeseen results, but was worth it to catch criminals.
Hetty Johnston, founder of child protection group Bravehearts, said she supported their tactics because ‘this is a war’.
‘I support this 100 per cent because the images that police would use would not be images that they create, they would be existing images,’ she told The Guardian.
‘And the idea is to get to people who are currently sexually offending against children.’
Ms Johnson said Inspector Rouse’s work was groundbreaking despite the ‘tough questions’ it raised.
‘He should be Australian of the year, what he has to do, what he has to view, would send most of us absolutely stark raving mad,’ she said.
But the mother of a girl officers distributed across the site did not agree because it hurt her even more.
‘My daughter should not be used as a bait. If they are using her images, then she should be paid or compensated for their use. It is not right for the police to promote these images,’ she said.
A similar operation by the FBI in 2015 of a site one-fifth of Child’s Play’s size made 870 arrests and saved 259 children after agents ran it for just two weeks
Faulkner and Falte were on September 15 both given life sentences for raping the four-year-old girl and running Child’s Play.
Police refused to say how many paedophiles were arrested or will be arrested as a result of Artemis, but Griffiths has a list of 60 to 90 main targets.
Another country said it had a list of 900 people to arrest, with some of them already behind bars, and hundreds of children were identified.
A similar operation by the FBI in 2015 of a site one-fifth of Child’s Play’s size made 870 arrests and saved 259 children after agents ran it for just two weeks.
Queensland Police said Argos operations led to 1,000 arrests and saved 500 children from abuse since 2003.
‘As these methodologies are used successfully and form a fundamental part of the work Argos performs, the QPS will not comment further on their use,’ it said.
Child protection legislation was strengthened last year, which ‘increased the police capability to infiltrate and prosecute the networks offenders create to facilitate the sexual abuse of children’.