The British paper ran an exclusive on how Australian-based Task Force Argos secretly took over the forum, before moving on to Huckle and other like-minded individuals.
According to English police officer Paul Griffiths, who worked in Argos to identify the victims, Huckle was an “arrogant user” of the forum and one of two dozen prominent users, whom the police were closely watching.
“He (Huckle) belittled others (on the forum) for claiming they were paedophiles. He thought they were just sitting at home living off other people’s experiences where he was out there living his life,” Griffiths said, adding that Huckle was also very arrogant and wanted to leave a legacy, to the point where he was titling his own work — sort of creating his own brand.
The 30-year-old predator also ran his production studio called Huckool Photography Productions in Malaysia, said the report. It linked to Huckle’s public Facebook profile, and in it were photos of children, including some which had appeared in the abuse material he had published online.
“Some of Huckle’s profiles are still archived. They are a sea of children: in church, dressed as Christmas angels, knee-deep in water, beaming, bunched together, delightfully over-excited (at) their English photographing uncle. Some show more brooding glances, and you wonder.”
The information Griffith passed to Argos subsequently resulted in Huckle’s arrest in December 2014, with 22 life sentences imposed on him.
“As I understand it, the Malaysians believed they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him,” said Griffith.
Six months prior to Huckle’s arrest, Argos arrested Australian paedophile Shannon McCoole, who was running “one of the world’s largest and most secure paedophile networks” – of which Huckle was a member.
The forum was run like a company, said the report. Users were required to upload material at least every 30 days or risk exile, and the 45,000 user accounts were ranked according to the quality of their output.
McCoole, who worked in childcare, was “effectively” the CEO. He is currently serving 35 years in jail.
Following the 33-year-old’s arrest, police took over his account and the next six months, ran the forum unbeknownst to its users. During the period, the police had access as McCoole to the forum’s “every crevice, and the private messages of all users”.
As for Huckle, the task force had to painstakingly trace his trail in photography sites using the brand and model of his Olympus camera – a tiny clue, which he had overlooked when he wiped his digital trail clean.
“Police traced the legitimate photographs to an email address, which in turn illuminated his accounts on other websites. In an echo of McCoole’s case, one of these accounts was registered under a similar name to that of a paedophile on their site (Huckle).”
By the time the forum was shut down, 85 children had been rescued and hundreds of people across the globe had been arrested, said the report.
Two Argos officers have received awards for “so seamlessly assuming McCoole’s identity for six months on the board,” said the report.