Police across Europe have arrested 115 people for involvement in a paedophile ring circulating images via an Austrian website, officers said on Thursday at the end of a two-year operation.
Hundreds of searches were carried out across Europe --in Austria, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Luxembourg -- and in Canada.
Two Austrians, aged 62 and 59, have been charged with producing photos of underage girls and putting them online.
One of them is charged with having sexually abused a 12-year-old girl over a two-year period.
Police were alerted in 2007 by an Internet service provider.
A total of 221 people were investigated, including 23 in Austria. More than 9,700 images were seized from the website's server and the majority of the site's users have been handed suspended jail sentences, Austrian police said.
The operation, code-named "Typhoon", has so far identified five children who have been victims of abuse. They are aged between four and 12 years old.