German police bust darknet fraud network tied to child abuse content

Investigators have shut down a large-scale fraud network on the darknet that advertised child sexual abuse material, Bavarian authorities said on Friday.

An international manhunt is under way for the alleged ringleader - a 35-year-old Chinese national living in his native country, the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office, the Bamberg General Prosecutor's Office and the Bavarian Justice Ministry said in a joint statement.

The have taken 373,000 pages offline and identified 440 of the 600 suspects, investigators said.

For more than four years, Bavarian investigators had been targeting a darknet platform that had images of severe sexualized violence against children. These were primarily advertised with the ultimate aim of fraud, to entice interested parties to buy further photos and videos.

Even though these were ultimately not delivered, "the fake shops advertised with real child sexual abuse material," Bavarian Justice Minister Georg Eisenreich stated.

"We must not forget: behind every image, behind every video is the unimaginable suffering of a child." The case also showed how frighteningly large demand is, he said.

The operation included global investigations into around 600 users who made payments on child abuse platforms between February 2020 and July 2025, with authorities from 23 countries involved and Europol coordinating.

In Germany, searches were carried out against 14 suspects in nine states: Bavaria, Berlin, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia.