A man in Queensland, Australia has been charged with 596 child abuse offenses in which he used a false online identity to raise children, mainly boys, between the ages of seven and 15 in Australia and other countries.
The 27-year-old accused, Ethan Mitch Burns-Dederer, was arrested in February 2025. The investigation into Burns-Dederer’s crimes has been ongoing for the past 12 months, during which 23,000 photos and videos were recovered from his hard drive.
The investigation identified 259 victims of child abuse, but police say there were 200 more victims.
Burns-Dederer was charged with 244 counts of producing material believed to be child abuse, 163 counts of procuring a person under the age of 16 using a delivery service, as well as 87 counts of sexual activity with a child.
According to police, they will allege the accused “actively targeted children on social media and gaming platforms between 2018 and 2025,” The Guardian reported.
“Police will allege the man himself produced the child abuse material found on the electronic devices,” the publication quoted Queensland Police as saying.
“Police will further allege that the man created multiple online profiles, posing as both men and women, and that the child abuse material was collected directly from the victims by the offender through grooming and coercion,” the statement said.
The dangers of gaming platforms
Like social media platforms, gaming platforms have similar features such as chats and messaging, which parents are not aware of, according to Chad Gallagher, Child Exploitation Squad, FBI, who spoke to internetsafety101.org regarding this issue.
Gallagher said that “With Xbox, you can receive messages from any of the major platforms. Even if you’re in a game, someone who has your game ID or nickname can send you a text message and it will appear on the screen and you can chat just like you would on a computer.” He believes that while parents try to limit their children’s access to social networks, gaming platforms that offer similar features go unnoticed.
The platform reveals that in many popular games, users can mask their voice. This can lead to predators targeting children by becoming younger.
The platform lists grooming, requests for explicit content, offline luring, financial exploitation as some of the dangers children may face when playing online games.
How to protect children from the dangers of online gaming
A cyber security company Kaspersky says that the best way for parents to keep their children safe from the dangers of online gaming is to play games with their children regularly.
Kaspersky says it strengthens the bond between parent and child and opens up communication. internetsafety101.org also asks parents to screen games with their children, encourage them to block or report suspicious activity, and monitor their well-being at all times so they don’t become addicted to gaming or become aggressive or feel isolated.
