The site known as 'Elysium' “was used for global exchanges of child pornography by its members and to arrange meetings to sexually abuse children,” prosecutors in the western city of Frankfurt said in a statement.

Its 87,000 members traded images and video files of “the most serious sexual abuse of children, including babies, and representations of sexual violence against children,” the statement continued.

After months of investigation, authorities arrested a 39-year-old man from the Limburg-Weilburg district north of Frankfurt in mid-June, and are questioning him in custody.

“The suspect is believed to have been largely responsible for the creation of the technical infrastructure of the platform as its administrator,” prosecutors said, adding that they had found the server used to store the darknet site's data during a search of his flat.

Darknet sites like the one uncovered in the case are invisible to most internet users and can only be accessed by using encryption technology.

They have repeatedly been used by criminals to trade drugs, weapons and child pornography.

Investigators have identified other administrators and members of the ring and arrested some of them, mostly in Germany and Austria.

Among them are people accused of serious sexual abuse of children as well as distribution of child pornography, the statement said.