An Auburn man is among 72 people federal prosecutors have charged with taking part in an international child pornography network called Dreamboard that allegedly promoted pedophilia and traded thousands of images of sexually abused children.

Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle, said the unnamed Auburn man was arrested in April. A Redmond man was arrested in July. The cases are being prosecuted in Shreveport, La.

According to the Associated Press, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday at a news conferenece at the Justice Department that the 20-month law enforcement effort, Operation Delego, targeted more than 600 Dreamboard members throughout the world for allegedly taking part in the private, members-only Internet club.

According to court papers, many network members sexually abused children ages 12 and under, produced images and video of the abuse and shared it with other club members.

Holder called the criminal activity a “nightmare” for the children.”

Some of the children in the images and videos were infants, Holder said. In many cases, the children were in obvious and intended pain, some sobbing, which is what the rules for one area of the bulletin board required, Holder said.

Napolitano called the amount of child porn swapped by participants in the network “massive,” equal to 16,000 DVDs.

Of the 72 charged in the United States, 43 were arrested in this country and nine abroad. Another 20 are known to authorities only by their Internet names and remain at large.