121 people have been arrested in Spain during a major police action against the production, distribution, and possession of child pornography. There were 125 searches throughout Spain. Nearly a thousand hard drives, USB sticks, DVDs, computers, smartphones, and other equipment were seized.
According to the police, this concerns a total of 500 terabytes of extreme pornographic material featuring minors. Two million files were found on a suspect in Madrid, spread over ten hard drives. In many cases this involved material showing serious sexual abuse of very young girls.
A man was arrested in Alicante in possession of explicit sexual images of two underage boys. When analyzing the images, it became clear that the abuse had taken place in the suspect’s home.
Images shared on digital platform
The Spanish police call it one of the largest operations against the production and distribution of child pornography ever in Spain. The investigation started when officers from the cybercrime department discovered that suspects who had previously been arrested were using an online platform to share material. During the investigation into that platform, the other suspects came into the picture.
The investigation is far from complete with the arrests. The police said in a statement that all images will be analyzed in the near future to identify victims. Justice also wants to map the size of the network in the hope of tracking down more suspects.
