Agents of the National Police, in a joint operational action of 11 European countries coordinated by EUROPOL, have arrested 13 people for distributing child pornography in different Spanish cities. One of them, in the municipality of Arrecife, in Lanzarote.
During the operation, in which more than 100 agents have participated only in Spain, 18 entries and searches have been carried out in which 39 electronic devices with more than 41,000 videos and 28,000 photographs of highly sensitive child sexual content have been seized.
In this international action in which, together with Spain, ten other countries have participated –Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Sweden- with the collaboration of international agencies, 166 people have been arrested and 774 searches have been carried out.
41,000 highly sensitive videos and 28,000 images in 14 provinces
On the part of Spain, the operational action has been developed by the Minors Protection Section of the Central Cybercrime Unit, coordinating the investigation groups of technological crimes from different provinces - Alicante, Barcelona, Cáceres, Castellón, A Coruña, Lleida, Madrid, Navarra, Ourense, Las Palmas, Santander, Tenerife, Valencia and Zaragoza-, with the participation of more than 100 agents in the device.
In the 18 searches carried out, 39 devices have been seized –laptops and desktops, mobile phones, USB sticks, hard drives and external memories– from which more than 41,000 videos and 28,000 images of highly sensitive child sexual content have been downloaded. During the operation, 13 people have been arrested and another five are being investigated, including a woman, with an age range from 17 to 51 years old, which makes this type of investigation difficult since the profile of the perpetrator of this type of crime does not obey a very heterogeneous pattern.
The operation, carried out during the week of March 24 to 28, was carried out jointly and in coordination by police forces from European countries –Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Sweden– against the possession, production and distribution of child pornography and, has had the collaboration of the United Kingdom through the NCA agency, the United States through the FBI and the HSI, as well as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
At the European level, 166 people have been arrested and, in the 774 home entries and searches that have been carried out, more than 594,000 multimedia files have been downloaded from the 6,000 devices seized.