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Australian Police Arrest 11 Alleged Members Of Suspected Pedophile Ring

Australian Police Arrest 11 Alleged Members Of Suspected Pedophile Ring

Authorities say 140 children were targeted on social media apps.

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

Western Australia Police have arrested 11 people over suspicions they're involved in a child grooming and sexual abuse ring.

Authorities swooped on several properties just before dawn over the weekend and led nearly a dozen people aged between 18 and 41 away in handcuffs.

Detectives have also seized computers and hard drives in the hope it will provide them with some answers about what is alleged to have gone on.

WA Police say the grooming and sexual abuse ring targeted dozens of kids in Perth. In total, 140 children between the ages of 13 to 19 were contacted, 23 of which ended up being sexually abused.

9News

WA Police Assistant Commissioner Brad Royce said their main way of communicating with the children was through social media apps and warned teenagers not to accept messages from people they don't know.

"They come in from likes and friends from other people and they get accepted and then they start grooming," he said.

"You wouldn't let a stranger into your home if they randomly knocked on the front door - likewise, you shouldn't allow someone to access your online profile unless you know them."

Police have been tracking the 11 alleged members of the ring since the establishment of Operation Timing Belt, which was started back in April.

WA Police

Authorities have so far arrested 18 people and laid nearly 220 charges, 79 of which relate to a sexual nature against youths.

Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Matt Daly said: "The majority of offences are non-physical communication via popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, and via mobile phones.

"Mobile phones and the ongoing rise of social media platforms provides offenders with new ways to reach out to youths in order to commit crimes and we're working hard to crackdown on this behaviour

Police say some of the alleged members would compare information about their 'targets' and would even share victims amongst one another.

They admit their work is often painstaking and takes a lot of hard work to identify each victim and hope their information leads them to the culprit.

"We've identified pictures or data in someone's phone and we've used that to track back identified victims and gone from there," Mr Royce said.

Featured Image Credit: 9News

Topics: News, Australia