The Darkest Web: 1. Meeting a monster

Summary

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World of Secrets: The Darkest Web

Episode 1. Meeting a Monster (BBC, Feb 16, 2026)

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Episode Overview

This gripping debut episode of World of Secrets: The Darkest Web follows BBC journalist Sam Paranti as he gains rare, years-in-the-making access to two US Special Agents—Greg Squire and Pete Manning of the Department of Homeland Security. Their work plunges them into the darkest corners of the Internet, fighting child sexual abuse spread through the “dark web.” The episode sets the stage for a chilling investigation, beginning with a single case and unraveling the immense personal and technical challenges faced in a relentless global hunt for both victims and perpetrators.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Start: An Unimaginable Crime (01:35–02:56)

• Discovery of Abuse
  • Agents Squire and Manning first learn, via a trusted contact, of images showing a 12-year-old American girl who has been abused for years, with pictures circulated on the dark web.
  • This triggers a determined effort to identify and rescue her.
• The Environment of the Dark Web
  • The dark web is described as “an encrypted corner of the Internet only accessible using special software, software designed with privacy in mind.”
  • Users are, for all intents and purposes, untraceable.
  • The task: identify a victim and her location based only on the scantest details visible in the background of the horrific images (furniture, a bare brick wall).

2. Meet the Agents (06:06–07:52)

• Dynamic Partnership
  • Paranti meets Squire and Manning in a nondescript Boston café, contrasting personalities but united by purpose:
    • Manning, an ex-Secret Service agent: reserved, tech savvy.
    • Squire: outgoing, physical, brings energy to their work.
• Professional Chemistry
  • The agents quickly found common ground, especially as both were fathers of young children, deepening their resolve.

3. Early Investigations and a Breakthrough Case (08:06–13:28)

• First Steps into the Online Underworld
  • Squire recounts an early case from 2010: a tip from a confidential informant about a “support” site, which masked actual abuse discussions.
• The Pivotal Clue: The Orange Jumper (10:45–13:28)
  • The agents notice a new, high-resolution image sent via webcam—a giveaway that the abuse may be current.
  • A vital clue: a young boy in an orange jumper holding a white bunny toy (Miffy, popular in Holland). This enables international cooperation.
• Public Appeal Pays Off (13:33–15:36)
  • Dutch police air the image on TV, leading to a breakthrough when the boy's grandfather recognizes him.
  • The abuser, Robert Mikkelsens, is identified as a trusted babysitter/daycare worker in Amsterdam, which opens the case wide.

4. The Unfathomable Scale: Uncovering Mikkelsens (15:51–17:24)

• Magnitude of the Crime
  • Over 46,000 images are found in Mikkelsens’s possession. 75 families call police the first day.
  • His conviction and the ensuing arrests of dozens globally cause seismic ripples in Dutch society and child care policies.
• Impact on Law Enforcement
  • Squire and Manning are deeply affected—motivated by the rush and responsibility of solving these high-stakes mysteries.

5. Into the Mind of Evil: Interviewing Mikkelsens (20:03–27:56)

• Encountering the Perpetrator
  • The agents travel to Amsterdam for a face-to-face interview with Mikkelsens, described as a “psychopath…extremely smart…very manipulative” ([23:05]).
  • He treats the agents with a chilling nonchalance, egotistically enjoying their attention.
• Strategic Interrogation
  • Mikkelsens tests Manning’s technical knowledge, developing a twisted sense of camaraderie with his interrogator.
  • Crucially, he reveals the technical methods used to distribute the abuse material: he and his husband, Von Olfen, set up a Tor site to gain notoriety in the criminal community.

6. Entering the Dark Web (26:34–29:00)

• Learning About Tor
  • The agents realize they must learn about the Tor network to keep up with evolving online crime.
  • “For me it was a brand new word, but it was a real eye opener that we sort of were looking at each other going, we're going to have to look into that when we get back to the U.S.” — Greg Squire ([29:00]).

7. The Search for "Lucy": Next Steps (29:20–30:19)

• Returning to the Present Case
  • On returning to the US, Greg and Pete get word of the American girl whose abuse images were found on Mikkelsens’ hard drive. They call her “Lucy.”
  • All they have are details from her environment in the images—clothes, bedspread, walls.

8. A High-Tech Hunt for Identification (30:19–31:52)

• Innovative Investigative Techniques
  • Manning focuses on photo analysis: metadata, environmental clues, and a potential breakthrough—using Facebook’s vast database to search for Lucy’s image.
• Cliffhanger
  • The episode ends as they prepare to try to identify Lucy using facial recognition on Facebook.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the Victim’s Trauma:
  “To look at her as a six year old little girl and to see her eyes…then to look at her in that 12 year old range and just to see that start to dim…to go, who has the right to extinguish that?”
  — Greg Squire ([03:44])

• On Interrogating Mikkelsens:
  “He liked having US law enforcement come over to interview him. In his mind, it made him like the star of the movie, maybe even the hero in his unique group of the worst people in the world.”
  — Pete Manning ([25:38])

• On Motivation:
  “It’s like this hit of adrenaline…that you had some small part in the identification of this ultimate mystery…to be able to find one person in the entire world…It’s, I don’t say that in an arrogant way…It’s more of a challenge on steroids that you’re able to solve.”
  — Pete Manning ([17:24])

• On the Dark Web:
  “We focus on the part of the Internet that most people don’t either know about or they know about and have no real need to use or don’t care to use it. It’s called the Dark Web.”
  — Pete Manning ([07:37])

• On Entering the Investigation:
  “There’s definitely no off switch…But they didn’t choose this.”
  — Greg Squire ([03:14])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------------------|--------------| | Content warning & series premise | 01:17–01:35 | | Discovery of Lucy & dark web context | 01:54–03:14 | | Meet Pete & Greg – personalities and partnership | 06:06–07:52 | | Early child abuse case, orange jumper & public appeal | 08:06–15:36 | | Scale of Mikkelsens case & aftermath | 15:51–17:24 | | “Rush” of identification described | 17:24–18:16 | | Going to Amsterdam to interview Mikkelsens | 18:16–23:35 | | The interview room: psychology of the perpetrator | 23:35–27:56 | | Tor network discovery and technical challenges | 20:26–29:00 | | Return to Lucy—current investigation and Facebook angle | 29:20–31:52 |

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Tone and Storytelling

The episode is sober, immersive, and driven by the gravitas of its subject—grappling with the horrors of crimes against children while spotlighting the incredible commitment and personal toll on the investigators fighting it. Paranti’s access brings humanity and immediacy, with agents speaking frankly and emotionally. The episode ends on a note of suspense, as the investigation into “Lucy’s” identity picks up pace, promising deeper looks into the digital detective work and the grim realities of pursuing justice in the age of the dark web.

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For Listeners

This episode is challenging but compelling journalism. It provides behind-the-scenes insights into real-life law enforcement, the horrifying realities of cyber-enabled abuse, and the relentless determination required to bring even a glimmer of hope to the darkest cases. The story continues with a deep dive into just how agents might use modern technology—and creative thinking—to save a life when every second, and every clue, counts.

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[End of Episode 1 Summary]

Transcript

[Podcast Narrator]

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[Sam Paranti]

Before we start, this series follows the work of two US special agents who fight child sexual abuse. So I need to warn you that we will be discussing this throughout and there's some strong language.

[Greg Squire]

In January of 2014, we had gotten information from a very near and dear friend of ours, Mads, and he had discovered some images of a girl and her pictures were being distributed across the dark web.

[Sam Paranti]

Somewhere a 12 year old girl is being sexually abused in her own home. The abuse began when she was just six years old.

[Greg Squire]

And it was his determination that this girl was likely an American. So we raised our hand, you know, ready to go and willing to, you know, do as much as we could to try to locate this girl.

[Sam Paranti]

Her abuser is sharing photographs of her with a vast community of child abusers on the dark web, an encrypted corner of the Internet only accessible using special software, software designed with privacy in mind.

[Greg Squire]

Users are untraceable, sexually abused for over six years. And I can't even, every time in this job you say, I can't even believe it, somebody proves you wrong.

[Sam Paranti]

But hidden amongst the pedophiles are two men whose job it is to try and find her. U.S. special Agents Greg Squire and Pete Manning. They work for the Department of Homeland Security in an elite unit whose job is to safeguard cyberspace.

[Greg Squire]

There's definitely no off switch, you know, but they didn't choose this.

[Sam Paranti]

But Greg and Pete are choosing this. They're choosing to enter one of the most secretive places in the world.

[Greg Squire]

This is a child who is just enduring something. We can't even imagine what it feels like and never want to know firsthand.

[Sam Paranti]

You know, if they don't understand how they operate and they can't stop them.

[Greg Squire]

To look at her as a six year old little girl and to see her eyes and you know, the light, that is quite normal in a child that age. And then to look at her in that 12 year old range and just to see that start to dim, you see what looks like an old woman behind those eyes and to go, who has the right to extinguish that?

[Sam Paranti]

It's not going to be easy because all they have to go on are the horrific images of abuse, the details they can see in the background of the pictures. Can they find her going on nothing more than a few bits of furniture and a bare brick wall somewhere in America. This is World of Secrets season 11 the Darkest Web a BBC World Service investigation. I'm Sam Paranti, a documentary maker. Episode 1 Meeting a Monster I first heard about Greg and Pete from a contact who told me about two remarkable men fighting a secret war against invisible enemies. I knew I had to speak to them to learn more about what they were doing. I spent months trying to arrange a meeting, emailing, calling, trying to win their trust before finally, in 2018, they agreed to meet. And so now I'm here, standing with my recording equipment in a sandwich shop in Boston, about to enter a hidden world. I'm staring at the menu, trying to decide between turkey and pastrami. Pete walks in first. He's medium height with dark hair. He's friendly enough, but reserved, watchful and contained, just as you would expect from a former Secret Service agent.

[Pete Manning]

I'm Pete Manning. I'm a special agent with Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security Investigations.

[Sam Paranti]

Special Agent Greg Squire is the opposite. He's tall, muscular, loud and tattooed. Where Pete blends in, Greg stands out and his energy soon takes over the small cafe. The two men had never met before. They got partnered up by their managers at Homeland Security who thought they might work well together.

[Greg Squire]

Pete and I had, we had a great first couple of interactions. We didn't have a desk for him when he came on. And Pete came with a very good reputation from Secret Service you know, really smart guy, you know, dedicated. And so wouldn't we that, you know, we obviously started talking about families. And his two daughters were just one younger and one older than my kids. And so we had, you know, a lot in common from, you know, a family and a social perspective.

[Pete Manning]

For some reason, we got onto this guy because he, like, he was around that border and he also.

[Sam Paranti]

It's immediately obvious that they share a close professional bond.

[Greg Squire]

I enjoyed learning more about the computer nerd kind of stuff. And Pete was a genius. I mean, he's just a really, really bright gu.

[Sam Paranti]

They have been partners for nine years and had formed something of a double act. Greg was always with Pete.

[Pete Manning]

We focus on the part of the Internet that most people don't either know about or they know about and have no real need to use or don't care to use it. It's called the Dark Web.

[Sam Paranti]

Before long, Greg starts telling me about the case they worked on which opened the door into the world they now occupy. One of their very first cases. Before they discovered the Dark Web, I.

[Greg Squire]

Had been working for a year or so with a confidential informant, and that informant had been giving us information about, you know, people that were visiting a website that was dedicated to the discussion of child abuse. And, you know, it was sort of like a veiled, you know, this is about support. You know, not about abuse, but about support. But, you know, that's just how they kind of got away with those conversations back then.

[Sam Paranti]

It's 2010, and Greg is just beginning to understand how dark this new world can be.

[Greg Squire]

These people would meet on this support site and then they would go off to email or Instant messenger and have real conversations about sexual abuse.

[Sam Paranti]

Greg started his career in the army, but he didn't want to do it forever, so he became a postman. But after seven years, he was done delivering letters. So he applied to join Homeland Security, hoping for a more interesting career. He was instantly assigned to the Cyber team, where he was soon partnered with Pete. The Internet was still quite new, and for investigators, there was opportunity in the technology of the time.

[Greg Squire]

One of the guys that was communicating with our CI had been sending, like, just stupid pictures of himself.

[Sam Paranti]

The man had been sending images of himself completely naked.

[Greg Squire]

Early day webcams, you know, that would sit on top of the monitor, which, again, this was good fortune down the road, but pictures of, like, a background of an office. And in the communication, he had sent a picture of a little baby boy. And again, not being like, as technically savvy as Pete, but having been on the Job. Then for three years, I had seen a fair amount of pictures.

[Sam Paranti]

It's not just what's in the picture that attracts Greg and Pete's attention.

[Greg Squire]

This picture that came through was really high quality. You could tell it was a good, clear photo, which to us as investigators, you know, sort of pops out as something that might be new, that might be unseen by anyone else. Pete had had some experience prior to working with us with Secret Service working crimes against children, and obviously had more technical background. And we both kind of agreed, hey, this looks new to me. Like, it looks like a new image of abuse.

[Sam Paranti]

Greg and Pete suspect their confidential informant is in touch not with someone dealing in images, but perhaps someone themselves committing abuse.

[Pete Manning]

Usually, as these images and files find their way through the network of abusers and everybody involved, the file size is reduced, so the resolution gets lower. And so when you see something that's so high res stands out. It was this one image, you know, it had a lot of detail in it.

[Sam Paranti]

The picture that Greg's confidential informant has been sent is of a very young boy in an orange jumper, less than three years old. But it's only one image. They need more evidence. They have to get a warrant to search the property of the man who had sent the image to the informant. One team searches the man's house while Greg and his colleague John goes to the man's office, a bank in downtown Boston.

[Greg Squire]

Maybe five minutes into the interview, we just straight up asked him, is this your screen name? Like, are you this person that's been sending pictures to this other guy he thinks is a bad guy? And he said, yeah. To top that off, what he did was reach into his desk drawer and pull out a blue SD card and basically held it up in his two fingertips, saying, this is what you're looking for. I was a little stunned still that he was providing this. Not just this confession, but this SD card with what he called, you know, had the evidence in it.

[Sam Paranti]

Turns out the man they question isn't making the images himself. They're being shared with him. With the young boy still in danger, Greg and Pete need to establish where the boy is fast.

[Greg Squire]

Thank goodness for Pete, because somebody walked it outside. Pete was there with all his forensic equipment, and he took possession of the SD card and started ripping through it. Long story short, what he discovered was even more images of this boy in this orange jumper.

[Sam Paranti]

That orange jumper makes all of the difference. That and a small toy.

[Greg Squire]

The little boy was actually also holding a little white bunny that ended up being Miffy. It's like A cartoon character in Europe and I guess very popular in Holland as well. So the fact that this child was likely Dutch, you know, was just exponentially growing.

[Sam Paranti]

With the boy likely to be in Europe, Greg and Pete need to ask for help.

[Greg Squire]

So unlike here in the us, the Dutch police have the right to have a little blurb during TV shows, during a news, a news program over there. So maybe December 6, maybe December 7, they aired an edited photo of this little boy on the news in Holland.

[Pete Manning]

The Dutch police really took a risk and decided that they needed to go public. The years of investigation that we've done, that we've considered this technique is really tough because you're basically, you're putting an image out there that is, you know, it's a child victim that you're asking the public to be able to help in some sort of way identify this child that's having the worst moment of their life.

[Sam Paranti]

It's a gamble, but it pays off.

[Greg Squire]

I was driving on Post Road in Northampton when my phone rang. I of course, had no idea what this would evolve into. But what she was telling me that night was when they aired the image of the little boy, the little boy's grandfather was watching the news program and he called the little boy's mom and says, hey, why is, why is he on the news? The mother had not been watching it. She was, you know, busy taking care of the kids. And she quickly turned it on, called Amsterdam police, because that's the city she's living in. And she was the first one to say, you know, our son, he's always with us. However, he did have a babysitter one night and that babysitter was Robert Mickelson's 27 year old.

[Sam Paranti]

Robert Mickelson's wasn't just the boy's babysitter, he also worked at his daycare. That's how he gained the parents trust, which allowed him to enter their home. And it soon becomes clear that it wasn't just this little boy.

[Greg Squire]

The phone lines at Amsterdam PD just exploded, basically. And it went from we're going to have a news conference, you know, at the police department to holy shit, the news conference has to be at a hotel. Because they fielded, I think, 75 calls the first day of parents who had let Mickelson's babysit their children. So not only was he working in this daycare during the day, he was offering and taking advantage of babysitting these children in the nighttime and over weekends. And, and this had gone on for.

[Sam Paranti]

Years when Mickelson's house is searched. Police find more than 46,000 child sexual abuse images on his computer. Mickelson's will be sentenced to 18 years in prison. The material on his computer will lead to 43 suspected paedophiles being arrested worldwide. The scale of the case shocks the Dutch public and leads to a re evaluation of men working in preschool childcare settings. For Pete and Greg, seeing the outcome first hand motivates them to repeat the operation's success. They don't know it, but their involvement in this case has set them on a course which will alter their lives.

[Pete Manning]

It's like this hit of adrenaline like that you had some small part in this identification of this ultimate mystery. Like the fact that there's this child out there, a person, whatever, somewhere in the world and that you're able to take that one image and then narrow it down to be able to find one person in the entire world. It's like, it's quite the rush to be able to make an identification. You know, somebody who's going through this, this horrific time and get them out of that situation is, is a great feeling. It's, I don't say that in an arrogant way like some sort of like, you know, oh, like savior of children everywhere. It's just, it's more of a like challenge on steroids that you're able to solve. Like, it's just like it's a great feeling.

[Sam Paranti]

Greg and Pete want to know how Mickelson's was able to abuse his children for so long. So they book a flight from Boston to Amsterdam to go and interview Mickelsons. They want to get inside the mind of a monster.

[Greg Squire]

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[Sam Paranti]

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[Sam Paranti]

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[Greg Squire]

What else did he know? Who else did he share these images with? Who else was there raping children who might have possession of his whole collection?

[Sam Paranti]

U.S. homeland Security Special Agents Pete and Greg are flying to Amsterdam to meet a pedophile arrested after uploading photos and videos of his abuse to the Dark Web.

[Greg Squire]

And you know, these were our very first utterances of Tor as well. That was our first eye opener in 2010, that this, this Tor network even exist.

[Sam Paranti]

When Pete and Greg touch down, they've got a vague idea of what Tor is, but it's sketchy at best. When most of us use the Internet, we open our regular browser window and then get chased around by companies who track where we're going and what we're looking at. And our browsing history is easy to find. And while it's tiresome to continually click into yes, I will accept cookies, you're probably fairly relaxed about this, but many of the people who use the Tor browser are not relaxed about this at all. There are no trackers, no browsing history, and because Tor makes all users look the same, it's extremely difficult for users to be identified based on their browser or device information. To all intents and purposes, you're invisible. Which is great if you live in a country with an extremely restrictive political regime which limits access to, say, the news, but also very convenient for people trying to access illegal content. If you're wondering, why can't the authorities just take these websites down? Well, it's not that easy. The sites are hosted on Tor specific servers where most of the time the person running the server doesn't even know the website is there. The creator of the website just rents a space on the server and then creates a website so heavily encrypted that it's almost impossible to access. Even if the police are able to access it and even shut it down, it mostly just pops up again the next day. Because just like your iPhone backs itself up, so do the individuals who run these websites. The people running these sites aren't just dangerous pedophiles. They've mastered this technology. Many of them, like Robert Mickelson's, virtually live online and that is why Greg and Pete are so keen to speak with him.

[Greg Squire]

He's a psychopath, you know, and extremely smart. I think he spoke seven languages at the end of the day, very, very tech savvy, very manipulative, very charismatic and on appearance, quite disarming. Kind of a slight kind of guy, very harmless looking. And I think people trusted him.

[Sam Paranti]

As they enter the interview room, Mickelson's is very relaxed. He's sending out a clear message that he's in charge.

[Greg Squire]

He felt like he was in, though, absolute control of the whole situation. It was as if he didn't have a care in the world. He had his tea, he had an orange or something. What were their legs? So he was seated when we came in and so we had been observing him just over the camera and he was having himself. There was some kind of undertone where this, this was going to be a cordial interview and that, you know, Mickelson's was doing us a favor by allowing us to interview him. And, you know, obviously he didn't have to be up for this. I guess he could have said, no, I don't want to talk to anybody, but his ego would never allow that.

[Sam Paranti]

You know, when you put them on a shelf and you think, what the.

[Greg Squire]

Hell, we have enough cold case.

[Sam Paranti]

No, no, it's their salt, but they are not adding it to the charge list.

[Greg Squire]

Why aren't they?

[Sam Paranti]

What the.

[Greg Squire]

There's 20 that are out.

[Sam Paranti]

It's even now, actually.

[Pete Manning]

We wanted to sit down with him and go through all these usernames that we had of people he was in contact with. I don't know what I expected out of him. We Weren't obviously being U.S. law enforcement, we weren't in a position to offer him any kind of deal and we wouldn't have anyway, so he didn't have really much to gain off of us.

[Sam Paranti]

So normally if I would have played with 50 kids, I would have made case one, case two, case three, case four, five maybe, and the rest. They decided my case was so big and so, so big and so unordinary and exceptional that they were not making those choices. So they just would charge me with everything. Much as it pains them, if they want to enter his world, then they have to play his games.

[Pete Manning]

He liked having US law enforcement come over to interview him. In his mind, it made him like the star of the movie, maybe even the hero in his unique group of the worst people in the world. You know, that he was able to gather that much attention that people would fly thousands of miles to talk to him was just that really made him excited. So we tried to build on that. We also tried to build off of he's a very smart individual technologically, socially. It would be hard to build a better criminal's. Not enough. It would be hard to build a better villain than Mickelson's just because of the combination of intelligence, social skills and sheer drive.

[Greg Squire]

He probably spent the first two hours, I'd like to say, quizzing us, but he was quizzing Pete. He needed, seemed like he needed to know we were smart enough to interview him. And he went round and round and round about computer forensics, about system setup, about all this stuff that was just sailing over my head. And Pete, thank God, was on the same level as this guy. Like they were able to kind of like create some rapport over the fact that Mickelson's was accepting him as an equal, which was nauseating to listen to. I had seen this guy rape so many kids. I couldn't like standing there staring across the table at him and watching him be so relaxed and sipping tea and asking for more snacks and being treated quite well, I thought was burning a hole in my soul at the time.

[Sam Paranti]

But as the hours pass, Mikkelsens begins to give things away. Drip feeding information that he just can't resist sharing, like what he and his husband had been making.

[Greg Squire]

What we learned from him was that his husband, Von Olfen, was very computer savvy, like, like Mickelson's was, but. But even more so. And what the two of them had decided was they wanted to figure out a way to get Mickelson's and I'll put air quotes up artwork out to the world. So they wanted to figure out a safe way to share this art with all the other pedophiles in the world that would be able to enjoy it and revere Mickelson's for the God that he thought he was. So Van Alphen, being very savvy, had been the one to suggest that, that they create their own Tor site and allow for users members to access the site and to, you know, regale Mikaslins as again, a God amongst pedophiles.

[Sam Paranti]

Armed with this new knowledge, Greg and Pete know what they need to do next.

[Greg Squire]

Pete, obviously, having been, you know, a computer science major, had heard of Tor. For me it was a brand new word, but it was a real eye opener that we sort of were looking at each other going, we're going to have to look into that when we get back to the U.S.

[Sam Paranti]

It's when they get back, they get a call from their colleague in Denmark telling them about a child they believe is in America. And it's the 12 year old girl we heard about earlier who appears to have been sexually abused from the age of, of six. Half a lifetime of abuse available on the dark web and her images were found on Mickelson's hard drive. Greg and Pete give her the name Lucy. Then set to work.

[Pete Manning]

This girl in, in very normal environments, surrounded by the things that she would have in everyday life. Her, her favorite clothes, her, her bed, her bedspread. The house, the, the, the wall coverings and the windows and all these things that you'd normally see in just everybody's house was now like captured in these, you know, these terrible moments that were surrounded by normal things.

[Sam Paranti]

All they have to go on are the pictures showing Lucy being abused and the room where it is happening. Pete begins coping through the images.

[Greg Squire]

10 different videos to look at for me to review. Answer whatever five or six test questions.

[Sam Paranti]

Examining their metadata information included in the image file that might give clues about what model of camera was used or even where it was taken through the database. Yeah, I know. He begins trying to match this up with other clues from the images themselves, like the direction of light which might reveal the time of day it was taken. He's looking for anything which might help narrow down the search. But the abuser is careful, taking care to cover his tracks and not giving too much away. There's little to go on, but then they have a brainwave. Facebook. If the special agents could give Facebook an image of this girl, then surely they could scan through all the images on their server, all the photos people have uploaded. She must be there somewhere. That's next time on World of Secrets.

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