Police have arrested 56 people across Massachusetts who they said created, possessed or shared explicit images of children, part of a widespread operation to address a growing trend of child exploitation via the internet.

Dubbed “Operation Firewall,” the investigation brought together the Massachusetts State Police, federal officials, district attorneys in multiple counties, and local police in at least 30 towns. It nabbed suspects from 40 communities in every corner of the state, from successful businesspeople to parents and relatives of the child victims, Lt. Col. Dan Tucker, commander of the state police’s Division of Investigative Services, said at a news conference Monday afternoon.

Tucker said the suspects ranged from age 18 to 75 and included 55 men and one woman.

“If you think you may know the type of person who commits these types of crimes, I can assure you there is no profile when it comes to child exploitation,” Tucker said.

Across three days, police executed 34 search warrants and seized 229 electronic devices. Twenty-five of the arrests were for possession of child sex abuse images, also known as child pornography. They had “an alarming amount of illegal content on their electronic devices,” Tucker said.

Nineteen people were charged with enticement of a child after agreeing to meet for sex with an undercover officer they believed to be a minor.

Seven of the suspects had warrants for failing to register as a sex offender. Five people were arrested on warrants for rape and assault and battery on a child, Tucker said.

The suspects targeted “our most vulnerable victims, our children,” State Police Col. Geoffrey D. Noble said.

Crimes against children made possible by access to the internet and electronic devices are on the rise, Tucker said. Since the pandemic, tips to the Massachusetts Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force have increased by 270%.

“Every parent in Massachusetts needs to know what’s on their children’s devices,” Noble said. “They need to monitor who they’re speaking to online. And they need to set clear expectations that it’s never okay to create or share explicit material of yourself or another person. As a father of three myself, I understand how difficult those conversations can be, but they’re essential.”

Noble said the operation lasted months and required “enormous effort” from state police troopers and “numerous” other law enforcement agencies.

“Without the work and their work to secure dozens of complex warrants and coordinate the movements of several multifunctional law enforcement teams, this operation would not have been possible,” Noble said.

He said the investigation required overcoming the tactics internet criminals use to hide their identities online through encryption, decoy IP addresses and other technologies.

The disturbing nature of the investigation also required investigators to set aside personal feelings about the suspects and their behaviors and “follow the evidence,” Noble said.

“Working on these cases and reviewing this explicit material comes with an enormous personal cost as we recognize the indelible scourge of these crimes on victims and their families,” Noble added.

Police expect to make additional arrests in the coming days. Several cases are ongoing, Tucker said.

“This is one of the hardest parts of our job,” Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early said at the news conference Monday. “It’s something you never get used to. It’s something you never really understand.”

He said the spread of exploitative images on the internet can have destructive, cascading effects on the victims for years to come, leading many to turn to substance abuse or fall into the criminal justice system.

Early urged families aware of child exploitation to call police or their district attorney’s office, “because we know too often this goes under the radar until there’s an effort like this to bring it forth.”

Berkshire District Attorney Timothy Shugrue, who began his career prosecuting child abuse cases in Springfield in the 1980s, said technologies used to investigate the cases have advanced since then. But he said the mission remained fundamentally the same: protecting society’s most vulnerable victims.

“This kind of work is not easy,” Shugrue said. “It’s time-consuming, it’s taxing, it’s expensive, and requires an extraordinary level of care and precision.”

In a presentation on the operation, state police thanked local departments from Abington, Attleboro, Boston, Bernardston, Bellingham, Brockton, Chelsea, Dartmouth, Clinton, Framingham, Falmouth, Foxborough, Grafton, Holland, Hull, Lawrence, Lynn, Natick, Milton, Millbury, New Bedford, North Andover, Plymouth, Springfield, Stoneham, Sutton, Templeton, Waltham, West Springfield and Worcester.