Darkish net looking. Credit score: Shutterstock, MAYA LAB
Legislation enforcement has shut down one of many world’s largest baby sexual exploitation platforms, often called Kidflix. Led by German and Dutch authorities, the crackdown spanned 36 international locations and resulted in 79 arrests and almost 1,400 suspects recognized, in keeping with supporting organisation, Europol.
1.8 million customers of ‘Kidflix’: The disturbing catalogue of kid abuse
In keeping with Europol, Kidflix operated as a serious darkish net platform ‘providing offenders a borderless platform to contact and groom victims, in addition to to create, retailer, and alternate baby sexual abuse materials.’ Created in 2021, the location reportedly attracted over 1.8 million customers globally by March 2025.
On March 11, German and Dutch police seized the central server, which on the time held 72,000 movies, as famous by Reuters). In complete, 91,000 distinctive movies have been uploaded and shared on the platform — a lot of them beforehand unseen by investigators, in keeping with studies.
‘Not like different identified platforms of this type, Kidflix not solely enabled customers to obtain baby sexual abuse materials but additionally to stream video recordsdata,’ Europol confirmed. Customers accessed materials by way of cryptocurrency-based tokens, earned by ‘importing CSAM, verifying video titles and descriptions and assigning classes.’
‘Operation Stream’: The most important operation in Europol’s historical past
Described by Europol as ‘the biggest operation ever dealt with by its consultants in combating baby sexual exploitation,’ Operation Stream ran from 2022 till March 2025.
One chilling case reported by Metro concerned a 36-year-old man who had ‘supplied his younger son for video games’, cited by Metro. German authorities intervened 96 instances to safeguard kids and efficiently stopped abuse in 12 ongoing circumstances.
Actual victims of Kidflix
Catherine De Bolle, Europol’s Government Director, pressured the real-world injury of on-line exploitation:
“Some try to border this as merely a technical or cyber problem – however it’s not. There are actual victims behind these crimes, and people victims are kids.”
Magnus Brunner, EU Commissioner for Inner Affairs, added:
“The dismantling of this prison community demonstrates the added worth that EU companies like Europol present.”
As Metro famous, suspects ranged in age from late teenagers to individuals of their seventies, with the common age round 31. Many had lengthy histories on the darkish net. Most have been additionally repeat offenders.
View all world information.