A 37-year-old man from Wollongong has been arrested as the final alleged offender in a two-and-a-half-year police operation that resulted in the largest seizure of child abuse material in New South Wales history.
Matthew Roberts was taken into custody about 5am yesterday after a raid on a South Nowra property, where police seized mobile phones, laptops and iPads allegedly containing a large amount of child abuse files. He has been charged with 21 offences, including 13 counts of using a carriage service to make available child abuse material and five counts of possessing child abuse data.
Roberts appeared in Sydney's online bail court today, where his solicitor Matthew Zappia said there would be no application for bail. He has not yet entered pleas. The matter was adjourned to Wollongong Local Court on July 1.
Strike Force Glandore investigated an international cloud storage platform containing child abuse files accessed by about 700 people. The operation led to 62 arrests in NSW, including 60 men and one woman, with just under 400 charges laid and 150 property raids conducted.
Sex Crimes Squad Acting Superintendent Detective Adam Powderly described the operation as historic, noting that detectives worked tirelessly to investigate every NSW-based alleged offender. He said the alleged offenders came from all walks of life, with ages ranging from 18 to the late 70s. Twenty children across Australia were identified from the images, and police have taken action to ensure their protection.
Superintendent Powderly credited improved police technology and cooperation from the cloud-based company for enabling investigators to infiltrate accounts linked to the shared files. NSW Police continue to work with the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation and share information with other states to track down remaining alleged participants.
