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Two years ago, two FBI agents were shot dead while serving a search warrant as part of a child abuse investigation, in one of the darkest days for the agency in recent memory. Now, that investigation has led to the arrests of 98 people in the United States and Australia, authorities from the two countries announced Tuesday.
U.S. authorities arrested 79 people and convicted 43, FBI legal attaché Nitiana Mann told a news conference, while police in Australia said they arrested 19 men.
The Australian investigation began last year after the FBI proed the authorities with information about Australian members of a “technologically sophisticated child abuse network,” who allegedly used the dark web to share — and in some instances create — images and s of child abuse, according to a statement from the Australian Federal Police.
“The complexity and anonymity of these platforms means that no agency or country can fight these threats alone,” Mann said.
The people arrested in Australia are between ages 32 and 81, the AFP said, adding that many of them worked in jobs that required a “high degree” of IT knowledge, AFP Cmdr. Helen Schneider told the news conference. Two men who were arrested, both of whom were unnamed, were convicted in June this year, the AFP said; one was a public servant who was sentenced to more than 14 years in prison.
While accessing the dark web is not illegal, it is visible only with special browsers, and some of its participants use it for illicit acts.
Australian police did not rule out further arrests.
In February 2021, Da Lee Huber fatally shot FBI Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger as they attempted to serve a search warrant at his apartment in Sunrise, Fla., before taking his own life. Three other agents were injured in the shooting.
“After their murder the FBI commenced an international operation targeting offenders on the platform, ” the AFP said.
Two FBI agents were fatally shot while doing their life’s work: Fighting child abuse
Both Alfin and Schwartzenberger specialized in investigating crimes against children.
Their killings marked the first time in more than a decade that FBI personnel had been shot dead while carrying out law enforcement work, and drew comparisons to another killing 35 years earlier, when two agents were killed and five injured in a shootout in a Miami suburb.
“They put their lives on the line, and it’s a hell of a price to pay,” President Biden said at the time, while FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said the two agents “exemplified heroism today in defense of their country.”
President Biden on Feb. 2 said his “heart aches for the families” of the FBI agents killed and injured while serving a warrant in Florida. (Video: The Washington Post)
