The Paedophile Unit is a branch of the Metropolitan Police Service's Child Abuse Investigation Command, based at Scotland Yard in London, England.
Originally part of the Criminal Investigation Department, it was transferred to the uniformed branch in November 1972[7] after it was revealed that some of its officers were taking bribes from the pornography industry.
In 1993, it returned to CID control, allowing its officers to once again use the "detective" prefix in front of their ranks, and became part of SO1(4), the International and Organised Crime Branch of Specialist Operations.
The Obscene Publications Unit had a secret list of 316 Paedophile Information Exchange members, mostly men and most in the UK but with some in western Europe, Australia and the US, possibly seized in a police raid in the late 1970s.
[10] The BBC found further information about 45% of the people on the list: half had later been convicted, cautioned, or charged but died before trial for sexual offences against children included distributing abuse images, kidnap and rape.