Global child porn ring: Queensland child identified Offenders are nice 'on the surface' Police are "appalled" by child exploitation images seized during a global operation, with 33 Queenslanders from all walks of life charged. PT1M55S http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/action/externalEmbeddedPlayer?id=d-2xkyw 620 349 November 15, 2013 - 11:39AM A Queensland child has been identified as a possible victim of sexual abuse during a major police investigation into a global child pornography ring operating out of Canada. The images of the Queensland child were found on a computer belonging to a man accused of purchasing child exploitation material from a Toronto company called Azovfilms.com. The images of the Queensland child were not purchased from to the Toronto firm, but accessed from other sources, police said. Detectives are preparing to speak to the child, who is aged under 10 and is from southeast Queensland. ""We've identified a potential offence against a Queensland child,"" Detective Inspector Jon Rouse said. ""We're investigating that now, because the offender had the images on his computer. We have to now go through a process of interview and see if there's any disclosures. ""If we find that something's happened, there will be a further charge placed before the court."" Queensland Arrests ----- No Australian children featured in the material sold via the Canadian website, Inspector Rouse said. ""But what our job is ... is to identify what [else an offender] has done,"" he said. ""And in many cases they did have material that had come from the website, they had downloaded it from elsewhere and it was more severe than the actual material they had purchased [from Canada]."" As part of the sting, Queensland police searched 38 homes from Surfers Paradise to Atherton, near Cairns. The raids uncovered thousands of DVDs, police said. Thirty-three Queenslanders were charged with accessing and possessing child exploitation material. Those arrested included four teachers, a university lecturer, a pensioner, a nurse, a student, a bank manager and a number of tradesmen. Most of the men charged are due to face court over the next two months, but a bank manager from Boonah has already faced court and was fined $1000 with no conviction recorded. The global sting began in 2010 in Toronto, where police received complaints about a website advertising ""naturist"" films. Police said the films featured young naked males from the Ukraine, Romania and Germany, and were exported to the US, Australia and elsewhere. More than 100 search warrants were executed across Australia as part of the national Operation Thunderer led by the Australian Federal Police. Sixty-five men, aged between 22 and 76, were arrested on 399 charges. A child in the ACT was removed from harm as part of the investigation, along with five other children in Western Australia. Internationally, 348 people were arrested and 386 children removed from harm. The Toronto firm was producing child exploitation material and procuring young boys, mainly from Russia and Ukraine, to appear in images and films. The company claimed the material was ""artistic"," but Queensland Detective Superintendent Cameron Harsley said that was far from the truth. ""I've seen some of the images, I'm appalled by them,"" he said. ""There was little doubt these children were recruited for the sole purpose of producing child exploitation material to be sold across the world to those willing to pay for the privilege."" Australian Federal Police commander Glen McEwen said the investigation was one of the largest of its kind ever carried out through law enforcement co-operation. ""The AFP and state and territory police worked relentlessly alongside international partner agencies to bring these offenders to justice,"" Commander McEwen told journalists in Canberra. ""This global investigation has disrupted a wide-spread international network of suspects, in a powerful demonstration of law enforcement working together to protect children around the world.""