Senior administrators took charge of individual boards, grouped around categories such as boys or girls, hardcore or non-nude. вЂњIt ran as a company or business,вЂќ Rouse says. Police discovered an intricate hierarchy operating on the site. вЂњWhen we arrested him we took over his account.вЂќДЄt that stage вЂњwe were just another userвЂќ, Rouse says. вЂњOne of the Queensland targets was a member,вЂќ Rouse says. вЂњAt the end of the day the best way to deal with this is to see it as digital evidence of the commission of a criminal offence against a child.вЂќДЄfter WayвЂ™s capture, dozens of arrests across Queensland followed, including of one man who subscribed to a site Argos had yet to unearth: a vast, highly organised forum, whose name is still suppressed under a strict court order. вЂњI was so shocked.вЂќД«ut to survive you need to вЂњget past your abhorrence and horrorвЂќ, he says. His stern mask drops momentarily recalling вЂњthe very first time I saw a video of a child being penetratively rapedвЂќ. вЂњOur job is to investigate it and end it.вЂќ Now one of the worldвЂ™s largest paedophile networks was being run from the Brisbane headquarters of the Queensland police вЂњWhen weвЂ™re dealing with a video, when you hear children screaming, weвЂ™re listening for accents, trying to identify where that abuse is occurring,вЂќ he says. Rouse came up through the Queensland policeвЂ™s child safety group, where he investigated parents who had killed or mistreated their children, before joining Argos in 2000. Jon Rouse, the head of Taskforce Argos, a Queensland police unit that specialises in disrupting child sex abuse networks online. Their details were passed onto Insp Jon Rouse, the grave 52-year-old who commands Taskforce Argos. About a tenth of his 370 customers were based in Queensland. The disarray was typical of a predatorвЂ™s home.Д«ut Way, who was later convicted of 15 charges related to child abuse images and is awaiting sentencing, kept meticulous records.

When Canadian police raided his premises they found it piled with refuse, the bathroom sheeted in thick mould. The 42-year-old had built a child-abuse film distribution racket worth $4m, which to this day is among the largest ever discovered. The loose thread, that once pulled, would unravel HuckleвЂ™s world, leads back five years to Toronto, and the warehouse headquarters of businessman Brian Way. How he was tracked and arrested is a story of persistence, good fortune and an audacious half-year sting, which key figures inside the specialist police unit responsible, Taskforce Argos in Australia, have granted the Guardian access to share. Huckle had diligently recorded their names in a ledger, detailing the acts he had performed with each one. Police believe he had at least 169 other young victims. In June Huckle was sentenced to 22 life terms, one for each of the minors he was convicted of abusing. Richard Huckle, dubbed вЂBritainвЂ™s worst-ever paedophileвЂ™.

More than 45,000 people complied.Д«ut what those thousands never realised, even as heavy users began to disappear, was that the site was being run by police.ДЇor six months in 2014, inside a pale office block in the Australian city of Brisbane, an elite squad of detectives were administering the site: analysing images, monitoring conversations, connecting users with their crimes.Д«y the time they pulled the plug on the forum 85 children had been rescued and hundreds of people across the globe arrested.ДЄmong them was Richard Huckle, a 30-year-old Briton living in Malaysia, one of the boardвЂ™s most prolific members.

Those who stayed had to upload new material frequently. Quiet accounts raised suspicion and could be suddenly terminated. The website dealt in abuse video and images of children, swapped and boasted about on a dark-web forum, accessible only through an encrypted browser. It was one of the worldвЂ™s largest and most secure paedophile networks вЂ“ an online space where tens of thousands traded horror.

The takeover