Washington (CNN) -- Seventy-two people have been charged in an online global child pornography ring that originated in Louisiana, in what is described as the largest prosecution of its kind, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Wednesday.
Dubbed Operation Delego, the federal law enforcement action began in December 2009, targeting more than 500 people around the world allegedly participating in Dreamboard, a members-only online bulletin board that officials say was created and operated to promote pedophilia and encourage the sexual abuse of very young children.
"Utilizing sophisticated techniques in an attempt to avoid law enforcement detection, Dreamboards' members allegedly traded graphic images and videos of adults molesting young children, often violently, and created a massive private library of images of child sexual abuse," Holder said at a Justice Department news conference also attended by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton and other officials.
"The rules of Dreamboard were clear: They encouraged and incentivized the creation of child pornography," Holder said.
Members of the Dreamboard organization were spread across five continents and 13 countries, officials said.
"In order to become part of the Dreamboard community, prospective members were required to upload pornography portraying children under 12 years of age or younger," Holder said. "Once given access, the participants had to continually upload images of child sexual abuse in order to maintain membership.
"The more content they provided, the more content they were allowed to access. Members who created and shared images and videos of themselves molesting children received elevated status and greater access."
Some of the children featured in the images and videos were infants, officials said.
"In many cases, the children being victimized were in obvious and intentional pain, even in distress and crying, just as the rules for one area of the bulletin board mandated," Holder added.
He said Dreamboard members were united in the belief that sexually abusing chilldren should not be criminalized, and some referred to their actions as a "hobby."
A total of 52 people have been arrested so far, and of those, 13 have pleaded guilty, with four individuals having already received sentences of 20 to 30 years in prison, officials said.
ICE Director Morton said those involved used technological techniques such as proxy servers and encryption to conceal their activities.
"No matter how saavy online predators think they are, we will find them, dismantle their networks and bring them to justice," Morton said.
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