In one of many largest coordinated regulation enforcement operations, authorities have dismantled Kidflix, a streaming platform that supplied youngster sexual abuse materials (CSAM).
“A complete of 1.8 million customers worldwide logged on to the platform between April 2022 and March 2025,” Europol stated in a press release. “On March 11, 2025, the server, which contained round 72,000 movies on the time, was seized by German and Dutch authorities.”
The European regulation enforcement company described it as the most important operation undertaken to fight youngster sexual exploitation. It has been codenamed Operation Stream.
The multi-year probe, which commenced in 2022 and concerned 38 nations internationally, noticed 1,393 recognized globally by way of an evaluation of cost transactions, with 79 of them arrested up to now for distributing CSAM. A number of the apprehended people have additionally been accused of not solely importing and watching such content material but in addition abused youngsters.
As well as, greater than 3,000 digital gadgets have been seized. The investigation stays ongoing.
In line with Europol, Kidflix launched in 2021 and amassed a catalog of 91,000 distinctive movies over time. Roughly 3.5 new movies have been uploaded to the platform each hour on common.
The platform, which had about 190,000 registered customers since April 2022 and till its shutdown, supplied the power to each obtain and stream the content material after customers made funds utilizing cryptocurrencies, which have been then transformed into tokens.
“By importing CSAM, verifying video titles and descriptions and assigning classes to movies, offenders may earn tokens, which have been then used to view content material,” Europol stated.
“Every video was uploaded in a number of variations – low, medium and prime quality – permitting criminals to preview the content material and pay a charge to unlock greater high quality variations.”
That stated, the recognized offenders characterize solely a fraction of the 1.8 million customers who’re suspected to have logged on to the platform between April 2022 and March of this yr. Per Dutch police officers, 13 suspects have been recognized within the Netherlands, though no arrests have been made to date.
Taking part nations included Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Eire, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA.
“The digital dimension has pushed a fast evolution in on-line youngster sexual exploitation, providing offenders a borderless platform to contact and groom victims, in addition to to create, retailer, and trade youngster sexual abuse materials,” stated Catherine De Bolle, Europol Government Director.
“Some try to border this as merely a technical or cyber situation – however it’s not. There are actual victims behind these crimes, and people victims are youngsters.”
The event comes because the European Fee unveiled a brand new inside safety technique known as ProtectEU to raised detect cyber threats, battle critical and arranged crimes, and share intelligence throughout the area.
As a part of the initiative, the Fee is predicted to “current a Know-how Roadmap on encryption to establish and assess technological options to allow lawful entry to information by regulation enforcement authorities in 2026.”
The thought, it added, is to “establish and assess technological options that will allow regulation enforcement authorities to entry encrypted information in a lawful method, safeguarding cybersecurity and basic rights.”
