Thousands of suspected pedophiles have been identified and dozens more arrested as Europol, on Wednesday, announces the seizure of Kidlix, a massive child sexploitation website boasting millions of users worldwide.
Calling it “one of the largest paedophile platforms in the world,” officials say Kidflix, at the time of its seizure on March 11th, was found hosting roughly 72,000 videos exploiting children.
More than 1.8 million users were recorded logging onto the site between April 2022 and March 2025, with an average of 3.5 new videos uploaded to the platform every hour, Europol said.
Led by Bavarian State Criminal Police and its Cybercrime Prosecutors Office, the coordinated investigation involved over 35 nations with the support of Europol, according to Wednesday’s press release.
“The digital dimension has driven a rapid evolution in online child sexual exploitation, offering offenders a borderless platform to contact and groom victims, as well as to create, store, and exchange child sexual abuse material," said Europol Executive Director Catherine De Bolle.
Kidflix, one of the largest paedophile platforms in the world, has been shut down in an international operation against child sexual exploitation.
undefined Europol (@Europol) April 2, 2025
⏹️ Europol has supported authorities from 38 countries worldwide in shutting down the platform.
More: https://t.co/eoETaBNyBi pic.twitter.com/FPI9xkuTkE
Kidflix was said to have been created in 2021 by “a cybercriminal who made huge profits” running the site, sparking a more than two-year-long investigation that began in 2022.
Nicknamed Operation Stream, the investigation culminated with a series of actions taking place from March 10th to 23rd, leading to the identification of 1,393 suspects, the arrest of 70 individuals, as well as the seizure of over 3,000 electronic devices.
A total of 39 children have been protected as part of the operation.
The majority of suspects identified during the operation were matched against records in Europol’s databases, the EU law enforcement agency said, proving that most are repeat offenders and are already known to police.
The individuals arrested have been charged with sharing and distributing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), but officials say some suspects are also accused of sexually abusing children.
DeBolle said there is “some attempt to frame this as merely a technical or cyber issue – but it is not.”
“There are real victims behind these crimes, and those victims are children. As a society, we must act to protect our children,” she said.
What made Kidflix unique from other pedophile platforms was that Kidflix not only enabled users to download CSAM but also to stream video files, Europol said.
Users would make payments to the site in the form of cryptocurrency, which could then be converted into tokens.
The users could then earn tokens to view even more content by performing actions such as uploading CSAM, verifying video titles and descriptions, or assigning categories to videos.
“Each video was uploaded in multiple versions – low, medium, and high quality – allowing criminals to preview the content and pay a fee to unlock higher quality versions,” Europol said.
Nations participating in the joint Operation Stream include all EU member nations, the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Albania, Serbia, Georgia, and Columbia.
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