German police shut one of world’s biggest darknet child abuse images sites

Boystown platform had membership of more than 400,000 international subscribers

An online platform said to be one of the largest websites hosting child sexual abuse images in the world has been closed down by German police after a lengthy investigation.

The Boystown platform, which had a membership of more than 400,000 international subscribers and was active for almost two years, was accessible only via the darknet, a component of the wider internet for which special software is needed. It was used for the swapping and sharing of images and films, mainly of boys, according to investigators from Germany's federal investigative police force (BKA).