British Police

Operation Ore was launched in 2002 after the credit card details of 7,200 people believed to have paid for child porn on the internet were supplied to British police by US detectives. In the US, police arrested only carefully selected targets caught in sting operations and a tiny fraction of those on the list were convicted. However, police from the UK investigated thousands of people believed to have paid for child porn on the internet. Hundreds of homes were searched, computers and accessories were seized, arrests were made and more than 2,000 people were convicted. Former suspects in the massive child-porn investigation have filed a class action lawsuit against UK police detectives behind Operation Ore. The lawsuit claims bias and that lives have been devastated by the investigation which left hundreds of innocent people tarred.