Australia Police Arrest 70 in Child Porn Raids

SYDNEY, June 5 — -- Seventy people have been arrested in Australia in nationwide child pornography raids and more arrests are likely, police said on Thursday.

Those arrested include a policeman, a teacher and sports administrator, after a six month investigation into paedophile communities online and how they trade images of child pornography on the internet.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said some of the images showed children being abused.

"These are not children in passive poses," Keelty told local television. "You will see more arrests, the investigations are continuing."

Police said the investigation started when a hacker infiltrated a respectable European website and placed 99 explicit images of young girls from eastern Europe, the United States and Paraguay.

The site got 12 million hits worldwide in the three days that followed and police traced some of those back to home addresses in Australia.

Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Bill Tarrant