European police say KidFlix, “one of the largest pedophile platforms in the world,” busted in joint operation

German investigators said Wednesday that they had dismantled a major platform for the distribution of child sexual abuse images that had 1.8 million users worldwide, in an international operation coordinated by the pan-European police agency Europol.

The move to shut down the “KidFlix” streaming service was “one of the biggest blows against child pornography in recent years, if not ever,” said Guido Limmer, deputy head of the Bavarian Criminal Police.

The investigation was led by German police and supported by authorities in 38 countries, including Australia, Canada and the U.S., under the coordination of Europol.

In all, “KidFlix” is said to have hosted more than 91,000 videos with images of child sexual abuse, totaling around 6,288 hours of video, according to the Bavarian police force.

Authorities were able to identify almost 1,400 individual users of the platform, which was hosted on the so-called darknet or dark web.

Police in March carried out searches at locations in 31 countries in the “largest operation ever” organized by Europol, according to Limmer.

A joint raid by German and Dutch authorities resulted in the seizure of a hard drive with around 72,000 videos of child sexual abuse, he said.

In Germany, police carried out raids at 96 locations, targeting 103 individual suspects, the Bavarian police said.

German authorities said they had worked to identify child victims of the abuse while the investigation was still in progress.

Police arrested a 36-year-old man in the eastern German city of Chemnitz in January 2024 who had searched for abuse images on “KidFlix”.

The man had also “offered his young son for games,” Limmer said. The child had been handed over to child protection services.

Investigators had also been able to identify a “serial” abuser in the United States, Limmer said.

“KidFlix” was created in 2021 by a “cybercriminal who made huge profit from it,” according to Europol, “as it quickly became one of the most popular platforms among pedophiles.” 

About 3.5 new videos were being uploaded to the site per hour before it was taken down, according to the international police agency.