INDIANAPOLIS — Federal prosecutors are working with police in several countries to investigate suspects in a child pornography “social-networking site’’ that once had 1,000 members trading explicit images.
Prosecutors said more than 50 people had been arrested and 35 convicted of various child pornography-related charges as part of the two-year investigation.
They said they were seeking the extradition of the group’s alleged ringleader, Delwyn Savigar, who is serving a 14-year prison term in England for sexually assaulting or trying to abuse three underage girls.
Savigar created and ran a password-protected website at which members could access collections of sexual images — some including as many as a million files — share their fantasies about having sex with children, and give advice to one another about how to build their collections and avoid getting caught, said Steven D. DeBrota, an assistant US attorney.
“This was a social-networking site, really,’’ he said.
To join, a person had to be sponsored by a member and voted on, DeBrota said. Some members knew one another only by their screen names, but some knew one another outside the ring.
The group did not focus on producing photographs, although several members were found to have been sexually abusing children, sometimes producing images of the abuse.
“Making the material was not part of this group’s conspiracy,’’ DeBrota said.
The group had about 1,000 members at its peak but had culled its membership to about 500 when US officials took down the website in 2008.
