Forty held in child porn raids

Austrian authorities today said they have arrested 40 suspects and seized thousands of videos, CDs and DVDs in a year-long crackdown on child pornography.

Officials detailing what they said involved months of undercover investigation said police also confiscated dozens of PCs, laptops and hard drives in an operation carried out in cooperation with authorities in neighbouring Germany.

Mario Hubmann, a senior official with Austria’s Federal Criminal Investigations Bureau, said the suspects range in age from 16 to retirees in their 60s.

Hubmann said the lurid images seized in raids on scores of homes nationwide included photos of one of the suspects with the man’s 17-year-old stepdaughter.