Italian police have busted an online child pornography ring in which scores of people across the country were using an Internet file-sharing programme to exchange videos and photographs.
A total of 52 people are under investigation in 15 Italian regions including Lazio, Veneto, Sicily and Tuscany, while a factory worker in Belluno and a physiotherapist in Naples who worked in the youth sport sector have been arrested.
Investigators were able to infiltrate the ring by using an undercover agent who posed as a paedophile and shared online images with the members of the network.
Police then moved in on the individuals who had transferred photographs and videos of kiddy porn.
During the course of the ten-month operation investigators confiscated 85 personal laptop computers, 100 hard disks, over 6,000 CD-ROMs, DVDs and floppy disks, 74 pen drives and 300 video cassettes.
