Victim's rights attorney Jeff Anderson on Tuesday said that nearly 8,000 alleged child sex abusers have been in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) since 1940, NBC New York reported.

"For many, many years there's been an excavation of what are called the 'perversion files' — those are files held and hoarded at the Boy Scouts of America headquarters," Anderson said at press conference in New York.

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"Those 'perversion files' that they've had reflect that they have removed thousands of offenders of childhood sexual abuse over the years and they've kept that in files secretly."

Anderson said that there were 7,819 suspected perpetrators and 12,254 victims in the “perversion files,” citing testimony by a professional retained by the BSA to audit the files.

"That is a number not known before today or ever revealed by the Boy Scouts of America," he said, according to NBC.