German authorities said on Monday that they have shut down "one of the biggest darknet child pornography platforms in the world" which allowed users to share digital material "of the most serious sexual abuse of young children."

U.K. law enforcement arrested 4,760 people for suspected online child sexual abuse, including 320 high-risk sex offenders, during the first Covid-19 lockdown between April and September 2020,according to the U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA) on Friday.

Russian special forces rescued a seven-year-old boy who was kidnapped in September near his school in Gorki after an unnamed U.S. intelligence agency scouring hidden areas of the internet found a link between the boy and a user of the dark web.

As the world is eagerly awaiting a vaccine to stop the spread of the coronavirus, some international agencies warn of its possible weaponization and misuse and predict that criminal networks will target storage facilities and distribution networks as soon as vaccines move closer to delivery.

Measures taken by governments to restrict the spread of the coronavirus have led to more sexual abuse cases and especially “children may be at an increased risk of sexual exploitation both online and offline,”Interpol warned on Monday.

With an increasing number of people around the world confined to their homes, measures designed to quell the spread of the coronavirus pandemic have resulted in an increase in people accessing child pornography.

Belgian authorities working in partnership with Europol have convicted four suspects as part of an ongoing international probe into a paedophile ring that abused children just a few months old. 

Girls caught up in gangs are trapped in a cycle of threats and violence and are vulnerable to criminal and sexual exploitation, reports theGuardian.

More than 300 Nigerian boys and men, some as young as five, have been rescued during a raid on an Islamic school in which some of them were found in chains, beaten and sexually abused, CNN reported. 

Georgian authorities arrested last week several members of a child-trafficking crime group, accusing them of illegal production and distribution of child sexual exploitation material.

Thousands of minors have been exploited throughout the European Union and busting criminal networks trafficking children is one of the block’s top priorities, Europol said in a report released on Thursday, the EU Anti-Trafficking Day. 

Seven men were sentenced for participating in an international child pornography production conspiracy The US Justice Department, announced.

Romanian authorities said Tuesday they detained six people suspected of belonging to an organized criminal group that trafficked children to Paris and forced them to steal and beg on the streets.

Italian police arrested seven people on Tuesday after a three-year investigation into a massive child pornography and sex abuse ring operating on the dark web.