German investigators said Wednesday that they had dismantled a major platform for the distribution of child sexual abuse images that had 1.8 million users worldwide, in an international operation coordinated by the pan-European police agency Europol.
The move to shut down the "KidFlix" streaming service was "one of the biggest blows against child pornography in recent years, if not ever," said Guido Limmer, deputy head of the Bavarian Criminal Police.
The investigation was led by German police and supported by authorities in 38 countries, including Australia, Canada and the U.S., under the coordination of Europol.
In all, "KidFlix" is said to have hosted more than 91,000 videos with images of child sexual abuse, totaling around 6,288 hours of video, according to the Bavarian police force.
Authorities were able to identify almost 1,400 individual users of the platform, which was hosted on the so-called darknet or dark web.
An image shared by the international law enforcement agency Europol on April 2, 2025, shows the names of partner agencies that took part in an operation to dismantle the online child sexual abuse platform "KidFlix". Europol
Police in March carried out searches at locations in 31 countries in the "largest operation ever" organized by Europol, according to Limmer.
A joint raid by German and Dutch authorities resulted in the seizure of a hard drive with around 72,000 videos of child sexual abuse, he said.
In Germany, police carried out raids at 96 locations, targeting 103 individual suspects, the Bavarian police said.
German authorities said they had worked to identify child victims of the abuse while the investigation was still in progress.
Police arrested a 36-year-old man in the eastern German city of Chemnitz in January 2024 who had searched for abuse images on "KidFlix".
The man had also "offered his young son for games," Limmer said. The child had been handed over to child protection services.
Investigators had also been able to identify a "serial" abuser in the United States, Limmer said.
"KidFlix" was created in 2021 by a "cybercriminal who made huge profit from it," according to Europol, "as it quickly became one of the most popular platforms among pedophiles."
About 3.5 new videos were being uploaded to the site per hour before it was taken down, according to the international police agency.
LupusDeusMagnus on April 3rd, 2025 at 12:37 UTC »
Every line of the article is like being hit in the head with a metal pipe.
Why.
NovaHorizon on April 3rd, 2025 at 09:59 UTC »
There was a German documentary recently that showed that deleting the files is way more effective. To distribute that shit they upload it to file hosters, which takes ages to do if you don't pay for them obviously. But all authorities do is to take down those platforms where they share the links but they don't contact the hosters to demand deletion of the files. So all the pedos have to do is wait for another platform to pop up and they can just relink their entire collection. It was a documentary by German investigative team Strg. It's available on youtube, but I'm not sure if it's subtitled into english.
Edit: Seems it was a streaming service, so my example doesn't apply here.
GenericName2025 on April 3rd, 2025 at 09:33 UTC »
I heard this on the radio today, at first I was like "TRUCK YEAH!". Then they said that it had 2 million (!) active users and 70000 videos of child abuse, and just hearing those numbers made me terrified and speechless. I know, with a population of 8 billion, you probably should have expected a number of sickos like that, but it's still shocking.
EDIT: Ok, guys, please no more adding more bad news and worse numbers on top.
I can't take any more of this shit.