( AP ) - French police arrested 20 suspects as part of a Europe-wide crackdown on child pornography over the Internet, authorities said Wednesday.
Three of those arrested also were suspected of having abused children during overseas trips, French police officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Police said the operation involved several European nations, including Germany, Italy, Belgium and Britain, though they did not say how many people have been arrested outside of France.
Police found 3,000 suspicious e-mail addresses during their investigations and used them to track suspects.
About 1.5 million illegal images were seized from the computer of a French information technology specialist, police said.
French police also said a Belgium man who appeared in an online video was arrested in his country after being recognized by authorities there because he was already the focus of other investigations.
Police said the man then told authorities about an Italian filmmaker who filmed child pornography in a studio in Ukraine.
The European sweep was not linked to another recent operation in France, in which police detained more than 300 people on suspicion of spreading child pornography over the Internet, police said.