Europol announces arrests of 115 'child sex offenders'

Europol says 115 alleged child sex offenders have been arrested in raids across 18 EU nations and Canada. It says its two-year Operation Typhoon - targeting child sex offenders on the internet - has now been concluded.

The suspects had different professional backgrounds, some of them being teachers or caretakers in close contact with children. It says it identified five children - aged between four and 12 - who had been victims of sexual crimes.

Europol says its investigation was led by Austria's Criminal Intelligence Service (.BK) which had detected an internet service provider misused by child sex offender groups to distribute illegal content on the internet. Log files collected by the .BK were then sent to Europol together with offending images. In all, 221 suspects have been identified of which 115 have been arrested, Europol says.