CHILD PORN RAID TARGETS HOME IN CANOGA PARK; COMPUTERS, SOFTWARE CONFISCATED.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer

Federal agents investigating an international child pornography ring raided a Canoga Park house, seizing computers and software, in one of dozens of search warrants served across the country, officials said Wednesday.

No arrests were made when 10 U.S. Customs Service agents, backed up by members of a child abuse task force, searched the Canoga Park home about 7 p.m. Tuesday, said Customs Service spokesman Mike Fleming.

With the warrant still under seal, Fleming said he could not reveal the location of the house or other details, including the nature of the evidence seized.

The federal warrant was one of 32 served in 22 states in two days, resulting in four arrests, said U.S. Customs Service spokesman Bill Anthony. In all, investigators in 14 countries have identified more than 100 people, most in the United States, who are suspected of using the Internet to trade child pornography.

``The people who exploit children in this way think they can hide in cyberspace,'' U.S. Customs Service Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in a statement. ``They are wrong. We will find them and bring them to justice.''

Given the speed of Internet communications, the searches in the United States were done at the same time so the suspects could not tip each other off, Anthony said. Investigators in other countries also coordinated their raids, he said.

``The unprecedented international scope of this investigation is immensely significant in terms of the number of countries involved and the level of law enforcement cooperation,'' Fleming said. ``If you transmit, via the Internet, images of child pornography from one country into the United States, then that's a federal crime.''

This investigation grew out of a similar case in 1996 in which the Customs Service identified an international child porn ring with members in the United States, England, Australia, Canada and Finland.

Arrests of British suspects in the last year led police in that country to an even larger and more sophisticated international child pornography ring whose members had to meet certain guidelines to join, such as possessing multiple images of child pornography.

In Canoga Park, agents took two computers and diskettes. Fleming said the evidence would be analyzed and it was too early to say if any arrests would follow.

The only other raid in California was in National City, in San Diego County, where agents took computer gear and files from the home of a 38-year-old man.

The Customs Service, enforcing laws against trading child pornography across the United States border, opened its first investigation into this illicit trade on the Internet in 1993.

In the nine months ending on July 31, agents have arrested 183 people on charges relating to possessing, manufacturing or distributing child pornography, eventually resulting in the conviction of 189 people.