When police executed a search warrant at a man’s home in Tennant Creek following a tip-off from a US clearing house, they had no idea what they would uncover.
The man’s arrest in late 2020 led members of the Northern Territory police’s highly-specialised Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team (JACET) down a rabbit hole, where they discovered and subsequently arrested 15 alleged child sexual offenders.
An analysis of the man’s devices and Facebook account showed he had been using Facebook to engage with other Territory-based men by using the adopted persona of a young girl – Kellz Ri – who at different times told the men she was aged between 11 and 14.
Last week, the man who instigated one of JACET’s biggest offender sweeps in recent history, Ashley Alum, was sentenced in the Northern Territory Supreme Court after pleading guilty to 15 child sexual offences.
He was found in possession of almost 3,000 sexually explicit images and videos, including of children as young as five years old, which were accessed over the internet using the dark web.
Now, the ABC can reveal how the operation that uncovered the vile network unfolded.
Police instigate Operation May
Following his arrest, covert police officers took over Alum’s account and continued communicating with some of their suspects as part of a specialised operation codenamed "May".
When one of the men tried to arrange to meet up for sex with Kellz — and offered to pay the girl as an inducement — police went along with it.
In February 2021, the suspect drove his Blue Holden Commodore to the carpark of Anzac Oval in Alice Springs, where he believed Kellz was waiting for him.
In reality, it was an undercover female police officer disguised as the girl.
As the man got out of his vehicle to meet Kellz at the park’s entrance, police arrested him.
The elaborate sting operation and subsequent arrest was one of eight arrests made that weekend alone.
Police said a total of 15 men, aged between 21 and 52, were arrested and charged, with search warrants executed as far north as Darwin and as far south as Alice Springs.
A tip-off from a US agency
Investigations into Alum began after police received information from the United States’ National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) about his exploitative behaviour.
Mark Cronin is the long-time NT Police detective in charge of Operation May.
His photo has not been used to protect his identity.
Acting Sergeant Cronin said Operation May was "unique" in that Alum had engaged with several men living in small communities in or around the Alice Springs and Tennant Creek areas.
"As such, there was a real risk of the destruction of evidence if [Alum's] arrest or the police operation became known," he said.
"JACET worked very hard to prepare and plan a number of warrants across the Northern Territory and brought in assistance from other NT Police sections, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation to assist with the resolution."
Over three days in February last year, officers executed a careful plan to catch offenders before word could spread about the sting.
"To prevent the operation from tipping off offenders, we sent two teams, one to the general Alice Springs area and one to Tennant Creek," Acting Sergeant Cronin said.
"Over the course of a weekend, from Saturday, February 5, to Monday, February 7, 2021, we executed eight search warrants and arrested eight offenders. Other warrants followed in the coming days and weeks."
'Serious and repugnant' behaviour
In sentencing, Chief Justice Michael Grant said Alum's offending was "both serious and repugnant".
"You chose to capitalise on the perverse sexual interest in children of other adult males for your own sexual gratification," he said.
"In doing that, you were directly involved in fuelling the market for the continued corruption and exploitation of children."
Alum had no prior criminal record.
Through his lawyer, Alum submitted that he did not experience any sexual gratification from the material found on his devices.
He said he kept the material as "bait", in order to get the adult men to send pornographic images and videos of themselves to him.
Chief Justice Barr said "vulnerable" children were subjected to exploitation and abuse as a result of Alum's behaviour.
"Young children are used by the manufacturers of child pornography to satisfy the demand which people like you create," he said.
"I must necessarily take into account the fact that children were grievously harmed in both a physical and a psychological sense to produce the images which you possessed and used, or at least some of them.
"There is, in my assessment, little difference in terms of moral culpability between the use of child abuse material directly for sexual gratification and the use of child abuse material indirectly for your own sexual gratification in the manner in which you used the material in this case."
Justice Barr handed Alum a head sentence of two years and eight months, suspended after one year.
