
Queensland Police have laid serious charges against a 27-year-old man who allegedly actively targeted children through social media and online gaming platforms.
He is charged with 596 criminal offences relating to child abuse, involving a total of 459 victims in Australia and 15 other countries.
The suspect has been in custody since February, after police found more than 23,000 images and videos of allegedly abusive content on his electronic devices.
Queensland Police Inspector Denzil Clark said the sheer volume of material had made the process of identifying the victims extremely complex, requiring "time, skill and dedication".
So far, 360 victims have been identified, over 200 of them in Australia, while the rest were overseas, mainly in English-speaking countries. The majority of the victims were boys aged between seven and 15.
Investigations are still ongoing, in cooperation with international authorities, to identify the remaining victims and provide them with the necessary support.
According to police, all of the crimes were committed online. The suspect is alleged to have operated from 2018 to 2025, creating multiple online profiles and posing as different men or women. He recorded interactions with victims and used threats, insults and coercion to force them to send sexual material, which he then stored in carefully labeled folders.
The charges include producing child abuse material, soliciting sexual services from a person under the age of 16 and sexual contact with a child through online communication services. The man was expected to appear in court on Thursday, while police have confirmed that other suspects are also under investigation.
Inspector Clark warned of the increase in cases where children are manipulated or threatened into sending sexual images of themselves through popular social media apps and networks, stressing that the trauma caused to children is deep and long-lasting.