Man 'admits spearheading Scandinavian paedophile ring on dark net'

Danish police say they extracted 56,594 images of child pornography and 3,174 videos from the man's computers

Policemen stand in front of a house in Copenhagen, Denmark (AFP/Getty Images)

A 33-year-old Danish man has confessed to running an online paedophile ring, according to prosecutors.

The defendant said on his first day in court that he was the driving force behind the website, where members had to communicate only in Scandinavian languages, prosecutor Pernille Munch said.

Danish police said they had extracted 56,594 images of child pornography and 3,174 videos from the man's computers and hard drives so far, but added the total amount of pornographic material contained on the devices could be much greater.

As well as operating the Scandinavian site, the man, from the eastern island of Bornholm, was allegedly an administrator of The Love Zone, a global paedophile network run by Australian Shannon McCoole, which was used by more than 1,000 paedophiles around the world.

Members of the site had to submit new pornographic posts every week to maintain their membership, The Local reported, and could rise higher in the site hierarchy if they submitted more images, and gain more access to material submitted by other people.

Both sites were hidden in the “dark net”, and could only be accessed through the Tor network, which hides users' IP addresses.

Danish police raided the man’s house in February this year, seizing a desktop computer and hard drives containing several terabytes of encrypted data.

According to Mr Munch, some of the material shared portrays serious sexual acts on children.

Last year, Norwegian state broadcaster NRK uncovered another Scandinavian-only paedophile site called Scandiland, which was also hidden deep in the "dark net".