Police today have smashed the world’s largest known pedophile ring, an exclusive Internet operation known as the Wonderland Club. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
@WiL

It was run by a sophisticated group of pedophiles operating on a global scale and included some of the most degrading images of children ever seen.
Members of the club, who described themselves as ‘the cream of paedophiles’, had to send in at least 10,000 indecent images of children to join. The ring was smashed in the largest ever international operation to be co-ordinated by the National Crime Squad in London.
Simultaneous raids took place around the world on September 2, 1998 with over 100 arrests in the United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the United States.
A horrifying library of 750,000 computer images of more than 1,200 victims and 1,800 computerised videos depicting children suffering sexual abuse were found.
Police believe they now know the identities of about 180 members of Wonderland, which was set up in November 1996. Gary Salt, described by police as the club’s chairman, was jailed in Manchester for 12 years for rape in July 1998.
Seven members arrested in Britain have now pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring with others to distribute indecent images of children. They will be sentenced at Kingston Crown Court in south west London next month and face a maximum three years in prison.
An eighth man arrested in Britain – Steven Ellis, a computer salesman from Earlham, Norwich – was charged but committed suicide in January 1999.
Wonderland members needed three separate passwords to access the degrading images from registered computers.
Detective Chief Inspector Alex Wood, of the National Crime Squad, said: ‘We are talking about serious sexual abuse to young children of both sexes – and to say that it is stomach-churning does not quite describe well enough what it is.
‘We can only guess and say that the Wonderland Club was the principal club worldwide. We cannot say how many paedophiles use the Internet.’
‘Prior to this the largest single seizure had been 8,600 images, so each member of Wonderland had to have a bigger collection of indecent images than previously seized at any one time.’
Mr Wood said information about the victims in the images had been sent to Interpol and police forces around the world.
He said he hoped the maximum sentence for such offences would be boosted from three to 10 years under the Criminal Justice and Courts Services Bill which is now under discussion.
Those facing sentencing next month are Ian Baldock, 31, a computer consultant from St Leonards, East Sussex, David Hines, 30, unemployed, from Bognor Regis, West Sussex, and Antoni Skinner, a 36-year-old computer consultant from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
They will be joined in the dock by Ahmed Ali, a 30-year-old taxi driver from Tulse Hill, south London, unemployed Andrew Barlow, 25, from Bletchley, Milton Keynes, Bucks, Frederick Stephens, a 46-year-old taxi driver from Hayes, west London, and Gavin Seagers, 29, a computer salesman from Dartford, Kent.
David Chaiken, a computer consultant from Maidenhead, Berks, was charged separately with possession and distribution of indecent images of children.
He was sentenced to eight months imprisonment for distribution and three months concurrent for possession at Reading Crown Court in June 1999. He was also ordered to be placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

DM