This is from an Australian newspaper--Oliver

Child porn hunt for 750,000 victims

By Nick Davies and Jeevan Vasagar

Australian police will join an international operation this week in the mammoth task of sifting through 750,000 pornographic pictures of children to try to identify the victims.

Seven members of a global child pornography ring named Wonderland face prison in Britain after pleading guilty to their roles in the distribution of the obscene pictures through the internet.

They were among more than 100 men arrested in 107 co-ordinated raids across three continents in Operation Cathedral, the largest international police campaign mounted against any crime.

Australian police also took part.

In the wake of the inquiry, the British Home Office is increasing the penalty for the distribution of child pornography to a maximum of 10 years in prison. The sentence faced by the seven Britons is the maximum now in force, however: three years.

Police forces around the world have been asked to trace the child victims, dozens of whom were under five years old. So far, only three have been found.

The case has highlighted the scale of the international child sex industry and, although Operation Cathedral is regarded as a stunning success, it has also revealed the weakness of international law enforcement against child abusers.

Three countries, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands, failed to join in the planned arrests. Authorities in those countries, which pulled out the evening before the joint raids, said they had not had enough time to organise themselves.

Several States in the US also originally missed their targets because they lacked local laws to prohibit the possession of child pornography, according to law enforcement sources.

Detectives simultaneously raided homes in Britain, the US, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal and Sweden.

The operation yielded an array of "horrific" images of abuse, including 750,000 computerised pictures and more than 1,800 computerised videos depicting children suffering.

US authorities have named the man who spawned Wonderland as Peter Giordano, 37, nicknamed "Hairy Mudd", a sales clerk for an electronics supply store, who was arrested by US Customs agents at his home in New York and has since pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography.

"He was the creator ... the guy who organised it," said Jim Gibbons, US Customs assistant director in charge of child exploitation.

The last of seven British defendants on Friday admitted conspiring to distribute indecent images of children and all are due to be sentenced on February 12 and 13.

An eighth British man was charged with the same offence but committed suicide in January 1999, four months after the raids.

The operation was carried out on September 2, 1998.

A 37-year-old man was held in Melbourne, two men were arrested in Perth and inner-city and Marrickville premises were searched in Sydney.

The Sun-Herald