Warning Explicit Content: Feds Bust Horrific Child Porn Ring Exploiting Infants to 12-Years-Old

Perhaps the most repugnant story of the week comes on the heels of federal law enforcement agents busting a horrific global online child pornography ring. The site, titled "Dreamboard," exploited children from infancy to 12-years-old, subjecting them to "violent" sexual assault.  According to reports, members of the ring insisted that each videotaped child be in genuine pain and tears during their attack.

While the ring was based in the U.S., its operations reportedly reached across five continents in 14 countries.

Now, 52 members of the ring have been arrested and charged in the U.S. and 10 have been arrested abroad, while another 20 suspects remain at large. According to reports four of the individuals arrested have pleaded guilty, each receiving sentences of more than 20 years in prison. Those sentenced are reportedly from Illinois, Alabama, Florida and Kentucky.

Those arrested outside the U.S. were picked up by officials in Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, Hungary, Kenya, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Qatar, Serbia, Sweden and Switzerland.

Roughly 600 men reportedly belonged to the now defunct "members only" online bulletin board, which authorities said urged and rewarded its members for sexually violating young children to the point of tears.

"The members of this criminal network shared a demented dream to create the pre-eminent online community for the promotion of child sexual exploitation but for the children they victimized this was nothing short of a nightmare," Attorney General Eric Holder said.

The Attorney General also stated that is is  hard for him to imagine that "there will ever be a penalty that could appropriately deal with this kind of conduct."

"Twenty to 30 years that the people have gotten in the past is, from my perspective, barely sufficient to handle what they have done in damaging the lives of these young people," Holder said.

Watch the disturbing report below:

CNN reports on the unspeakable details of the child pornography law enforcement agents uncovered and what Holder had to say about the bust.

"In order to become part of the Dreamboard community, prospective members were required to upload pornography portraying children under 12 years of age or younger," said Attorney General Eric Holder at a Justice Department news conference. "Once given access, the participants had to continually upload images of child sexual abuse in order to maintain membership. The more content they provided, the more content they were allowed to access. Members who created and shared images and videos of themselves molesting children received elevated status and greater access," he said.

What particularly horrified investigators were "super-hardcore" posts that involved adults having violent sexual intercourse with "very young kids" who were being subjected to both physical and sexual abuse.

Holder said, "Some of the children featured in these images and videos were just infants and in many cases, the children being victimized were in obvious and also intentional pain, even in distress and crying, just as the rules for one area of the bulletin board mandated. They had to be in distress and crying."

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano tried to explain the size and scope of the ring by stating: "To give you an example of the scope of this forum, the capture and analysis of the forum revealed that the board may have been the vehicle for the distribution of up to 123 terabytes of child pornography, which is roughly equivalent to nearly 16,000 DVDs. ... Additional media recovered from the targets arrested in the United States alone has been found to contain over one million images of child pornography."

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"As alleged, Dreamboard had strict rules and a rigid hierarchy. Its membership was tightly controlled by the group's administrators," Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer told reporters. "Applicants to the group were required to upload quote nude or hardcore child pornography to become members and members were required to continue posting additional images every 50 days or risk expulsion. Moreover, members could increase their status based on their level of commitment to the enterprise. From member, to VIP, to Super VIP, to the most elite status of all, Super VIP Dot. Only those members who produced their own child pornography could be granted the status of Super VIP Dot," Breuer explained.

John Morton, the head of ICE, said the day marked a law enforcement "success" but was nonetheless a "sad" day because of the nature of the crimes involved.

"There are days in this job where it's hard to separate great success from great sorrow and today is such a day. It's a day of great success because we've brought an end to one of the worst instances of Internet child abuse ICE has ever investigated. ... It's a day of great sorrow because this case is ultimately a tale of the perverse and often violent exploitation of children, very, very young children to satisfy the dark pleasures of a group of adult men," Morton said.

It is difficult to imagine justice really ever being served in an instance such as this. What has this world come to?