Police in Britain are claiming to have smashed the world's largest known paedophile ring, an exclusive Internet operation known as the Wonderland Club.
It was run by a sophisticated group of paedophiles operating on a global scale and included some of the most degrading images of children ever seen.
Members of the club, who described themselves as "the cream of paedophiles", had to send in at least 10,000 indecent images of children to join. The ring was smashed in the largest international operation yet to be co-ordinated by the National Crime Squad in London.
Simultaneous raids took place around the world on September 2nd, 1998, with more than 100 arrests in UK Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the United States.
A horrifying library of 750,000 computer images of more than 1,200 victims and 1,800 computerised videos depicting children suffering sexual abuse were found.
Police believe they now know the identities of about 180 members of Wonderland, which was set up in November 1996.
Gary Salt, described by police as the club's chairman, was jailed in Manchester in July 1998 for 12 years for rape.
Seven members arrested in Britain have now pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring with others to distribute indecent images of children. They will be sentenced at Kingston Crown Court in London next month and face a maximum three years in prison.
An eighth man was charged separately with possession and distribution of indecent images of children. He was sentenced to eight months' imprisonment for distribution and three months concurrent for possession last June.
Another man arrested in Britain was charged but committed suicide in January 1999.
Wonderland members needed three separate passwords to access the degrading images from registered computers.
Det Chief Insp Alex Wood of the National Crime Squad said: "We are talking about serious sexual abuse of young children of both sexes, and to say that it is stomach-churning does not quite describe well enough what it is. We can only guess and say that the Wonderland Club was the principal club worldwide. We cannot say how many paedophiles use the Internet."
He said Wonderland members would not have stood out as loners. "On the face of it some would have had normal lives, but it was not in any way possible to stumble into this world.
"They call themselves the cream of paedophiles. They are not the sort of people who suddenly develop an interest in paedophilia. The youngest victim was about three months and other victims aged up to about 18 years. They are quite horrific.
"Prior to this the largest single seizure had been 8,600 images, so each member of Wonderland had to have a bigger collection of indecent images than previously seized at any one time."
Chief Insp Wood said information about the victims in the images had been sent to Interpol and police forces around the world.
"One of the points of the operation has been to try to protect the children. We have pictures of children in hotel rooms and private environments. There is no way of telling where they came from."
He said he hoped the maximum sentence for such offences would be boosted from three to 10 years under the Criminal Justice and Courts Services Bill which is now under discussion.