Concurrent session 1d—Cyber: Operation Achilles—Infiltration of a global child sex offender network

Detective Inspector Jon Rouse, Operation Manager Task Force Argos, Queensland Police Service

Operation Achilles began in January 2006 and closed on February 29, 2008 with the execution of warrants and the arrest of offenders in Australia, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom. The operation was aptly named as police were looking for the ‘Achilles heel’ or the weak spot to allow the infiltration and dismantling of the network. Task Force Argos covert operatives infiltrated the international child sex offender network that were trading images and videos depicting the violent sexual abuse of children, utilising complex encryption, file transfer and hard drive protection to avoid law enforcement detection.

In phase one of Operation Achilles, Task Force Argos intercepted videos depicting two young girls being sexually abused. Analysis of the videos confirmed they were European and of commercial quality. This information was relayed to a law enforcement network consisting of the QPS, Interpol, Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Belgian Federal Police to locate the children. The girls were located and their Belgian father was arrested receiving 10 years imprisonment. Italian authorities subsequently arrested the website creator who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. His arrest triggered an investigation by Europol codenamed ‘Koala’ in recognition of its Australian origins. Two and a half thousand customers in 19 countries were identified and thousands of computers, videos and photographs were seized.

The Australian component was coordinated by Task Force Argos resulting in nine arrests in Queensland and the dissemination of a further 48 target profiles nationally.

A Task Force Argos operative was deployed to the FBI in Washington DC to maintain infiltration of the network and when finalised, Operation Achilles resulted in the removal of more than 70 children from sexual abuse, the arrest of 22 networked offenders globally, the closure of four commercial child exploitation websites and the arrest of more than 100 offenders internationally.