Man behind world’s biggest source of child abuse imagery is jailed for 27 years

Investigators found what appeared to be more 8.5 million images and videos on dark web servers created by Eric Eoin Marques

A man described by US authorities as the world's most prolific purveyor of child sexual abuse images at the time of his arrest in Ireland has been sentenced to 27 years in federal prison.

Eric Eoin Marques, 36, created and operated computer servers on the dark web that enabled users to anonymously access millions of illegal images and videos, many depicting the rape and torture of infants and toddlers. Law enforcement had never seen many of those images before finding them on Marques' servers, according to prosecutors.