The police had identified the administrators of the site – its creator, Canadian Benjamin Faulkner, and his associate, American Patrick Falte – but the real breakthrough came after the arrest of the two men in October 2016. The men, now aged 27, had met up and raped a four-year old girl provided by another site user in the state of Virginia. They have since been sentenced to life behind bars.Īfter capturing the pedophiles, officers made them hand over their passwords and other means of administering the site. “Once you have control of the site, you can do whatever you want. Then you can move it wherever you want in the world,” said Paul Griffiths, one of the lead investigators. The content of the site had been stored on servers of unnamed European countries, but control of the investigation, termed Operation Artemis, were turned to Task Force Argos. Founded in 1997, the unit, which specializes in underage exploitation online, not only had experience of previous stings, but also took advantage of Australian laws which allow police to engage in criminal behavior to catch child predators.
The task force copied the content of 'Childs Play' to an Australian server, and began posting under the identities of the administrators. One of the established means of showing that the website had not been infiltrated was a monthly post of explicit underage content by the administrators – something police in several countries were not allowed to do, even if they had acquired the handles.
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