Anti-paedophile police fight child porn 'epidemic'

The internet trade in images that show child sex abuse is now "an epidemic", according to the head of the global initiative to combat the problem.

Police officers from around the world serve on the Virtual Global Taskforce.

Its chairman, Ian Quinn, tells the BBC there has been an "explosion" in cases handled by US authorities.

The US alone has 61 Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) units, each made up of state, local police and federal agents.

BBC News joined a recent operation in Los Angeles.

Twenty one officers were briefed at dawn in a parking lot in central LA.

Lt Andrea Grossman, from the Los Angeles Police Department, told us they conducted such operations "three to five times per week".
Arrested suspect A man was arrested as a result of the Los Angeles operation

The amount of images of child sexual abuse on the internet, she says, is "beyond out of control, we're now just getting to the surface of it".

Their target was a man who had tried to send obscene images via his Gmail account.

The team was led by an officer holding a pump-action shotgun, backed up by others with an assault rifle and hand guns.

A suspect was detained.

The man's computer was analysed in a mobile laboratory, housed in a large camper van parked outside the address. BBC