Operation Alice, an international effort by law enforcement, has taken down more than 373,000 dark web pages selling bogus child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

The investigation, spearheaded by Germany with Europol’s assistance, commenced in mid-2021, targeting a platform called “Alice with Violence CP,” managed by a 35-year-old suspect from China.

The seized sites advertised both child sexual abuse content and illegal cyber services like stolen credit card details and access to hacked systems.

Europol states that the pages displayed previews of supposed CSAM “packages” to trick individuals into providing their email addresses and paying between EUR 17 and EUR 250 in Bitcoin, without receiving anything in return.

“Each package was priced between EUR 17 and EUR 215, promising data volumes ranging from gigabytes to terabytes of CSAM,” Europol explains.

“However, the web pages were purely fraudulent. They only advertised and previewed CSAM that was never actually delivered.”

The deceptive CSAM platform convinced around 10,000 users to send roughly $400,000 to the site operator. Authorities have identified 440 of these users across 23 countries and are currently investigating 100 of them.

Even though victims didn’t obtain the illegal material, they still attempted to purchase it, which financially supports child abuse and indicates an intent to commit a crime. Many legal systems prosecute even the attempt to purchase such content.

At its peak, the scam network used 287 servers, with a large number (105) based in Germany, all of which have been confiscated. German officials have also issued an international arrest warrant for the Chinese individual running the sites.

Europol emphasizes its broader work to protect children via programs, including the Help4U support platform, which launched in November 2025, and its “Stop Child Abuse – Trace an Object” project. This project encourages people to identify the origin of items shown in CSAM material, which could lead to identifying perpetrators and rescuing children from abuse.