British children caught up in one of world's worst ever porn rings: More than 250 youngsters worldwide aged as young as three exploited through social networking sites

British police are preparing to arrest dozens of men who accessed the secret obscene image-sharing website

It comes after 14 U.S. men were arrested earlier this week as the authorities uncovered one of the world's worst ever pornography rings



American Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced the major bust in a press conference on Tuesday

The administrator of the website has been identified as Jonathan Johnson of Abita Springs, Louisiana

A total of 251 children were connected to the website, and most of them were boys between the ages of of 13 and 15

Two of the victims were 3 years old or younger

British children using social networking sites have unwittingly been the victim of one of the world's worst ever child pornography rings, it has emerged.

Police are preparing to make arrests across the UK of dozens of men who had paid to access the secret obscene image-sharing website.

The US authorities - which smashed the international ring - called it 'one of the largest known online child exploitation operations in history'.

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Sting: British police are poised to make arrests after one of the worst ever child pornography rings was uncovered in the U.S. Fourteen men were arrested after more than 250 children, mostly boys were found to be victims. U.S. officials identified 27-year-old Jonathan Johnson (pictured) as the the main administer of the site

Many of the victims were contacted via social network sites and 'enticed to produce sexually explicit material'.

Some of the men responsible tricked them by posing as females.



More than 27,000 subscribers to the vile secret network had access to 2,000 videos filmed on computer webcams.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the US said they had arrested 14 American men who operated the member-only site from the southern state of Louisiana.

Investigators have so far identified 251 child victims, of whom 243 were boys.

There were 228 Americans and a total of 23 from Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Belgium.

The majority were aged 13 to 15, but 33 were aged under 12 and two were aged just three.

The UK's National Crime Agency has been handed detailed intelligence on British users of the site, who now face being arrested.

Big win: Officials with customs and homeland security announced the major sting in a press conference held Tuesday

Daniel Ragsdale, of the Department of Homeland Security, said: 'Never before in the history of this agency have we identified and located this many minor victims in the course of a single child exploitation investigation.'



He said the agency was fighting 'a growing trend where children are being enticed, tricked and coerced online by adults to produce sexually explicit material of themselves'.

Some of the 14 alleged operators assumed female identities to contact their targets on popular social network sites.

They have been charged with running a child exploitation enterprise after allegedly distributing the material through the Tor network, or so-called 'dark web'.

This allows Internet anonymity by hiding online traffic and a user's location.

The network, which was operated for a year from mid-2012 to last June, was unmasked after an item was sent through the US Postal Service to a child.

At least 300 subscribers to the site in the US and overseas face lesser charges.

An NCA spokesman said: 'We can confirm that information was sent to the CEOP command from our law enforcement colleagues in the United States.

'A number of disseminations have been made to UK police forces, but as investigations are ongoing, we cannot comment further at this time.'

Predators: Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the fourteen men arrested preyed upon 'the most innocent, most vulnerable members of our society'

Earlier this year, the Internet Watch Foundation warned of the dangers of UK teenagers sharing explicit images on social networking sites.

The IWF said children who used the likes of Facebook, the imgur or Flickr photo sharing websites or the Snapchat mobile phone app to send explicit pictures or videos to a boyfriend or girlfriend did not believe the images would be widely circulated.

But analysts found nine out of ten images posted on the internet featuring young people later re-appeared on so-called 'parasite' websites after being stolen, hacked or copied.

Once in circulation, it is very hard for them to be removed.

Susie Hargreaves, the IWF chief executive, said young people must understand they were exposing themselves to 'ridiculous levels of risk'.

She added: 'It can happen across the board to any child of any class.'



Over a period of just 47 working hours - the IWF logged 12,224 sexual images or videos of young people that had been uploaded to the internet.

Of these, 10,776 were later found on so-called 'parasite' websites, often designed solely for the purpose of displaying explicit images of children or teenagers.



Roy Naim, an immigration activists from Brooklyn, New York (left) and Andrew Korpal from Granger, Indiana (right) were two of the men arrested in the bust

24-year-old Michael J Eales of Westby, Wisconsin (left) and Tuckerton, New Jersey-resident Stanley Zdon III (right) were also arrested



Speaking earlier this week, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said: 'These alleged perpetrators preyed upon the most innocent, most vulnerable members of our society with no regard to the immediate or lasting harm they caused to their victims and their families.'



The investigation was led by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Postal Inspection Service.



All of the victims have been contacted by law enforcement officials and the U.S. victims have been offered the assistance of HSI victim assistance specialists.

There are still some 300 ongoing investigations into the website's subscribers.



Eleven of the 14 men, including the man authorities say was the administrator of the network, are being prosecuted in Louisiana. The other three are being charged in New York, Colorado and Wisconsin.

Authorities accuse Jonathan Johnson of of Abita Springs, Louisiana, of being the leader of the operation. They said he admitted creating multiple fake female personas from his home and encouraged others to do the same in an effort to entice boys to produce sexually explicit images of themselves.

Court papers show Johnson was charged last month through a criminal information, a document that can only be filed with a defendant's consent. It signals a guilty plea. He faces 20 years to life in prison.



A lawyer for Johnson did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Tuesday.

THE 14 U.S. MEN ARRESTED IN INTERNATIONAL CHILD PORNOGRAPHY RING

Jonathan Johnson, 27 Albita Springs, Louisiana Daniel Nolan Devor, 39 Brunswick, Georgia John C Foster, 44 Tipp City, Ohio Aung Gaw aka Michael Gaw, 25 Fremont, California Vittorio Francesco Gonzalez-Castillo, 26 Tucson, Arizona Sean Jabbar, 32 Minneapolis, Minnesota Christopher Jamieson, 30 Douglassville, Georgia Andrew Korpal, 29 Granger, Indiana Nicholas Saine, 27 Seattle, Washington

Christopher Schwab, 25 New Orleans, Louisiana Stanley Zdon III, 27 Tuckerton, New Jersey Roy Naim, 30

Brooklyn, New York Minh Vi THong, 30 Denver, Colorado Michael Easles, 24 Westby, Wisconsin





