Task Force Argos was set up in the late 90s to catch and prosecute the worst of the worst. Their job was to infiltrate and stop child exploitation material networks.
Former detective Jon Rouse led the group and said the horrors he witnessed left him outraged.
*A warning, this article contains confronting discussions about child exploitation in Australia.
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Police set up fake accounts online with names, ages and locations, pretending to be children. The task force infiltrated a child exploitation website and targeted offenders with illicit videos and images online.
“We arrested police officers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, every walk of life that, that operation was the wake up call for Australia that changed everything,” Rouse said.
It was one of the world’s largest and most secure paedophile networks with tens of thousands of members.
What members never realised was Task Force Argos was running the site to catch predators.
“I vividly remember the first time I saw a video that an offender captured,” he said, “I’ll never forget that. Absolutely. Rocked my world because my daughter was a very similar age, but you know, that was kind of one of those that just lit the embers of absolute outrage.”
When the operation was closed, 85 children had been rescued and hundreds of people across the globe were arrested.
“It’s another world in terms of, of just psychologically really challenging policing work because you are not going to ever stop it happening.”
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