And thanks especially to John Rabun, the Vice President and Chief of Operations for the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, for joining me here this morning.

I would also like to recognize Kathy McClure, the Deputy Chief of the Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity section, and Ruben Rodriguez, the Director of the Exploited Child Unit at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who are with us here as well.

Following my remarks, I will invite John to make some brief comments, and then we'll answer your questions. After that, Special Agent Mike Netherland will provide you with a short briefing on the details of the case.

Today, we are announcing the results to date of an investigation called Operation Hamlet.

This is a difficult case to announce, because I have rarely seen crimes as despicable and repugnant as those involved in this case.

Operation Hamlet is a 10-month investigation conducted by Special Agents of the U.S. Customs Service, in conjunction with the Danish National Police, the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorneys in Eastern and Southern Districts of California and law enforcement officers in six (6) European countries and eleven (11) different states.

Operation Hamlet uncovered a ring of pedophiles who sexually abused and exploited at least 45 children, ranging in age from 2 to 14 years old. 37 of these children are American citizens residing in the United States. Fifteen (15) members of the ring were charged in an indictment unsealed this morning in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. They all were charged with Conspiracy to Sexually Exploit Children, Sexual Exploitation of Children, and Receiving and Distributing Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of Minors.

What is particularly disturbing about this case is that the majority of the people who have been charged, were actually the parents of and in many instances were sexually exploiting their own children. In many instances, parents forced their children to pose in sexually explicit ways and to commit sex acts, that were photographed and then posted on the Internet.

With the power of the Internet, what may have once been an isolated local crime, quickly became a global crime.

This case began in November 2001, when a group called "Save the Children" discovered images on the Internet depicting a child, apparently in Denmark, being sexually abused. They immediately notified the Danish National Police. The Danish police investigated the report and arrested a Danish citizen for molesting the child whose image he had posted on the Internet-the child was his 9-year old daughter.

On his computer, the Danish Police discovered a web of pedophiles throughout the world, many of whom were in the United States.

In late January of this year, the U.S. Customs Cybersmuggling Center received its first leads in this case from the Danish government, and opened the investigation that we called "Operation Hamlet". This led to search warrants and arrests of 10 individuals in the United States, in California, Florida, Texas, Idaho, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina and Michigan and Washington State. And 10 individuals have been arrested in Europe - in Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and the U.K.

The 20 arrests and the charges all relate to using and sexually abusing and exploiting children, often their own children and then, to compound the crime, publishing the photos - the visual depictions of their crimes on the Internet and circulating these images among themselves, as part of a pedophile ring. According to the allegations of the indictment, the individuals indicted today for conspiracy to sexually exploit children, in violation of federal law, circulated these child pornographic images between and among themselves, e-mailed each other as to images they wanted to see, and in at least one case, exchanged children to be sexually abused and depicted.

Special Agent Netherland will be available to provide more of the specifics of the investigation a little later. I would like to comment about the investigation of these crimes that has led to the indictment unsealed this morning in California.

Throughout this summer, we have all been repeatedly shocked at the rash of abductions, molestations and murders of innocent children. It cannot be repeated enough, and bears repeating again, that America's most precious asset is its children. Our children must be protected at any cost.

At the root of many child abductions, child murders and child sexual molestations is a twisted desire for sex with children. This desire of pedophiles is fueled by child pornography, which today - unfortunately -- is more available than ever through the Internet.

By aggressively pursuing pedophiles through their efforts to obtain child pornography on the Internet, we can identify child molesters as agents did in this investigation.

In Operation Hamlet, dozens of children were molested and their images posted on the Internet. In this case, the normal safe harbor for many of these children -- their parents -- turned out to be their chamber of horrors.

Instead of protecting their children, these parents instead exploited them in the worst possible way.

We depend on the natural instincts of parents to protect their children from being abducted, from being exploited, and from being exposed to pedophiles. But when the parents are the abusers, then the government must step in with all its might.

With their images now distributed on the Internet, the 45 children who suffered abuse at the hands of those charged in this case will continue to suffer. Their images will be on the Internet for years and years to come -- passed from pedophile to pedophile. This is a crime that never ends.

Just recently, in fact, U.S. Customs agents found some of the images distributed by Operation Hamlet conspirators turn up in the course of another investigation.

I have seen some horrendous crimes in my time, but these crimes are beyond the pale. These crimes are despicable and repulsive.

People who engage in these kinds of despicable acts -- sexually exploiting children -- especially their own children -- should be removed from their children forever and incarcerated for as long as the law allows.

I applaud President Bush's call for a White House Conference next month on crimes against children. It is critically important to address this issue head on, and to do it now, before any other children are harmed.

I want to commend the efforts of law enforcement in this case, the Danish National Police, in particular.

U.S. Customs worked with other federal agencies, the Postal Inspection Service, and the FBI in this case.

The case involved arrests and search warrants in 10 states and we received valuable assistance from state and local law enforcement, including the Cloris, California Police Department; West Palm Beach Police Department, and Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in San Diego.

The assistance of the Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (Kathy McClure) and the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of California in the prosecution effort have been invaluable.

I also applaud the work of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as they create and encourage networks, like the Amber Network, to find abducted children quickly, before any serious harm can come to them at the hands of predators. Together we must find ways to both protect the children of our nation -- children of all nations -- and to starve pedophiles of the sordid images that induce them to act. The assistance of Michelle Collins to Operation Hamlet has been outstanding.

At this time I would like to invite John Rabun, the Vice President and Director of Operations for the Center for Missing and Exploited Children to make a few remarks.

Commissioner Bonner reserves the right to edit his written remarks during his oral presentation and to speak extemporaneously. Thus, his actual remarks, as given, may vary slightly from the written text.