The arrest that took place last Tuesday in Arrecife, of a man accused of pedophilia, was part of an "international macro-operation" against the purchase and sale of child pornography. The videos seized by the police showed "serious sexual abuse of minors", almost all of them from Ukraine, Romania and Germany.
In total, 28 people were arrested throughout Spain and another 10 were also charged within this operation, which began to be uncovered in Toronto (Canada). In that city was based a "company" that was dedicated to the sale of these videos worldwide.
According to the National Police, four of those arrested in Spain "also came to record their own videos, in which they sexually abused minors." The rest, including the one arrested in Lanzarote, are charged with buying those DVDs, which showed abuse of minors. Among those charged in Spain, there are also two other people from the province of Las Palmas.
[As La Voz reported last Wednesday->74270], the arrested in Lanzarote
, is about 40 years old. During the search of his home, the Police seized various computer equipment.
The beginning of the investigation
The investigation in Spain began last April, when a communication was received from Interpol. It warned that since 2004, "there was a business network in the Canadian city of Toronto, which was dedicated to the sale of DVDs with images of abuse of minors, all of them male."
According to the Police, "the company used three different web pages to advertise and make sales and its turnover amounted to 1.6 million dollars per year, with orders coming from 94 countries throughout the world." The videos were made with children from Ukraine, Romania and Germany "who were subjected to serious sexual abuse before and after the recordings, for which they received a sum of money." Now, "most of the minors have already been identified and rescued in their respective countries."
Buyers in Spain
Some of the numerous purchases made on the three web pages came from Spain, where there were even users "who spent thousands of euros on this type of video", according to the Police. The investigators tracked these purchases and located the addresses from which they would have been made.
In addition to the three men involved in the province of Las Palmas, there are also arrested and charged in Alicante (4), Barcelona (8), Cádiz, Castellón (2), Ciudad Real, Huelva, Madrid (8), Málaga, Navarra, Pontevedra, Seville (2), Tarragona (2) and Zaragoza (3).
In addition, 31 searches have been carried out, in which 20 computers, 81 hard drives, 1,881 optical media, 27 USB memories, 7 SD cards, 1 modem, 6 mobile phones, 6 cameras and 2 video cameras have been seized.
Abuse for money and by force
Four of those arrested in Spain are also charged with sexually abusing minors, whom they also recorded in those circumstances. In fact, when the investigators proceeded to carry out a search in the province of Alicante, they found two minors who were going to that same apartment to pose naked in sexual attitudes.
Two men, who have been arrested, paid the minors to commit the abuses. "If some of the victims refused to prostitute themselves, they tried to abuse them by force, even struggling and tearing the clothes of one of the children," the police said.
The operation has been developed by agents of the Technological Investigation Brigade with the participation in the investigations of different Territorial Units, among which are the Provincial Brigades of Judicial Police of Alicante, Barcelona, Castellón, Ciudad Real, Huelva, Las Palmas, Madrid, Málaga, Navarra, Pontevedra, Seville, Tarragona and Zaragoza, as well as agents from various Local Police Stations of the National Police.
