Old stories - Pedophile rings with links to Portugal

On September 2, 1998, over a thousand police and child-protection officers in thirteen countries raided over 200 men in connection with one of the biggest pedophile rings ever discovered.[1]

Police seized a total of 750,000 pictures along with a library of 1,800 computerized videos depicting children suffering sexual abuse. Of all these children, only 17 have been identified.

This pedophile ring was an exclusive international Internet club. The sordid entrance fee? 10,000 indecent pictures of children.

The international operation to trace the ring of pedophiles began in San Jose, California, in May 1996, when the police discovered that a child-abuser had broadcast live images on the Internet to a smaller pedophile ring known as the Orchid Club.

A ten-year-old girl had been pulled out of a slumber party in the middle of the night and taken into the computer room in an upper middle class American home, where she was molested and violated and raped online. The scene was broadcast to Australia and Canada and Finland and places all over the United States. Viewers were invited to send messages online saying what they wanted to see done to their victim.[2]

Once this incident was discovered, the ensuing investigation linked the Orchid Club to a larger and even more sinister pedophile network called Wonderland. Wonderland originated in the United States but also operated in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Britain.

Wonderland, the Orchid Club, and other pornography rings are not simply exchanging images of undressed children romping on the beach. They have images that are the most horrible — two-year-olds, even six-month-old babies, being violently raped.

Most of the 107 men eventually convicted for participation in the Wonderland Club were sentenced to fines. The heaviest sentence was three years in prison. Over 100 of these men are on the streets today.
The Wonderland used sophisticated encryption codes originally developed by the KGB.
The images they traded like baseball cards were of children tied up, children being raped, children having sex with animals, adults or other children. Suspects include teachers, a scientist, a medical student, a scout master, an accountant and a university professor.