Laura Schwartzenberger and Daniel Alfin (pictured here) died when child abuse suspect David Lee Huber opened fire. (Images: FBI)
More than two years after a child abuse suspect murdered two FBI agents, U.S. and Australian authorities announced 98 arrests in the related investigation into a “sophisticated online child abuse network.”
“Everything you do online leaves a trace. To those predators who seek to exploit children online, remember the next person you engage with online could be a police officer,” Glen Donaldson, acting detective superintendent with Queensland Police Service Child Abuse and Sexual Crime Group, said in a statement published Tuesday.
U.S. federal authorities were serving a search warrant at an apartment in Sunrise, Florida, on Feb. 2, 2021, when David Lee Huber, 55, a suspect in violent crimes against children, opened fire on agents as they tried to breach the door, investigators said. He killed FBI agents Laura Schwartzenberger, 43, and Daniel Alfin, 36, before dying by suicide, authorities said.
Authorities now say this investigation had an international scope. Related work led to the arrests of 19 men in Australia and 79 people in the United States, authorities from both nations said in a press conference.
According to investigators, the FBI gave the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation evidence about Australian members of a peer-to-peer network allegedly sharing child abuse material on the dark web.
“Most of the alleged Australian offenders, some who are also accused of having produced their own child abuse material to share with other members of the network, were employed in occupations that required a high degree of ICT [information and communications technology] knowledge,” Australian authorities wrote. “Members used software to anonymously share files, chat on message boards and access websites within the network. Network members were able to search for and distribute images and videos of child abuse material and allegedly used encryption and other methods to avoid law enforcement detection.”
They only identified the 19 defendants as men aged between 32 and 81 years of age. Two received prison sentences so far.
One man, identified only as a “public servant” from the Australian Capital Territory, was sentenced in June to 14 years and six months behind bars after pleading guilty to 24 charges, they said. A call center operator in New South Wales was sentenced in June to five years in prison after pleading guilty to possessing an estimated five terabytes of child abuse material.
The other cases are ongoing. Other defendants are from Australian states including Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia.
“Viewing, distributing or producing child abuse material is a horrific crime, and the lengths that these alleged offenders went to in order to avoid detection makes them especially dangerous,” Australian Federal Police Commander Helen Schneider said. “The longer they avoid detection the longer they can perpetuate the cycle of abuse.”
She suggested more arrests are possible.
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Authorities also said that investigators moved 13 children, either because the kids had been abused or as a safety precaution.
U.S. authorities have sent intel to 211 countries, FBI Legal Attaché Nitiana Mann told reporters. Of the American arrests, there have been 65 indictments and 43 convictions, she said.
Mann said that the U.S. investigation preceded Schwartzenberger and Alfin’s deaths.
“Laura is someone that always encouraged everyone,” said Michelle Brown, owner of a CrossFit gym where Schwartzenberger worked out, according to NBC Miami in 2021. “Everyone wanted to be Laura’s partner, everyone wanted to be here and work out with her. She was just a gem.”
“She was one in a million,” said Brown, who started a GoFundMe campaign to support Schwartzenberger’s family. “Her essence as a hero to this community, it’s huge. It will be a huge void.”
Alfin was a lead investigator in the arrest of the creator of what was then the world’s largest site of child sexual abuse material. Speaking in 2017, he said investigators managed to take down Steve W. Chase after the defendant inadvertently revealed the site’s IP address. A foreign law enforcement agent noticed and told the FBI.
“From that point we took normal investigative steps — seized a copy of the website, served search warrants for e-mail accounts, followed the money — and everything led back to Steven Chase,” said Alfin.
Chase received 30 years in prison. Two co-defendants, 46-year-old Michael Fluckiger of Indiana and 47-year-old David Browning of Kentucky, received 20-year prison sentences for helping run the site.
Alfin had used his computer expertise to find a place in the agency and combat crimes against children.
“He felt that there was a tremendous need for it,” his father David Alfin said of the late agent’s work, according to The South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “This guy really was one of the good guys.”
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