pornography, officials say.
The month-long"Operation Orion" also resulted in 18 children being
rescued, federal agents said.
Arrests were made mostly in the US but also took place in countries
includingSpain, Argentina, the UK and the Philippines.
The official in charge said many of the cases began with a child
chatting with someone they had encountered online.
"Let this operation be a warning to anyone who would think they can
use the internet to exploit children - we are out there looking for
you, we will find you, and you will be prosecuted," Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton said in a statement.
The statement said that Operation Orion focused onthe production,
possession and distribution of child pornography in videos and
photographs.
Those arrested included a 35-year-old babysitter in Louisiana
suspected of using a seven-year-old child to make pornography.
A 28-year-old man in Michigan was found to have more than 1,200 images
and 109 videos of suspected child pornography on computersand media
storage devices,officials said.
Eight men were also arrested in Los Angeles, including one who met his
alleged 12-year-old victim on the internet.
He was charged with enticing a minor to commitlewd acts after agents
pretended to be the girl online and arranged to meet him at a shopping
centre.
The ICE statement said thatthey had also "identified and rescued" 18
victims of child pornography.
No details were given of the arrests conducted abroad. The US Justice
Department also listed Sweden, Serbia and the Netherlands as involved
in the operation.
US Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said in a statement: "This
operation uncovered a dangerous and depraved group of criminals who
were devoted to trading sexually explicit images of children under the
age of five."