In 21 Spanish provinces, 35 individuals have been arrested by National Police officers for the storage and exchange of child pornography via instant messaging. Citizens’ collaboration sparked an investigation that revealed one of the detainees had sexually assaulted two young females. In addition to the individuals who were apprehended, seven individuals have been investigated for using services to store child pornography, and a total of 112 storage devices have been seized in the 42 searches that have been conducted.
The investigation was initiated in response to an email spearheaded by a citizen that warned of a potential link that contained images of child sexual exploitation. Information was obtained regarding the individuals who purportedly downloaded the images detected in the link as a result of the collaboration between companies that specialise in mass cloud storage and internal data cross-referencing with law enforcement.
42 provinces in Spain have been identified
35 individuals were apprehended in connection with the storage and exchange of illicit substances in various Spanish provinces, including Madrid (5), Alicante (4), Barcelona (4), Castellón (3), Valencia (3), Málaga (2), Salamanca (1), Asturias (1), Cáceres (1), La Rioja (1), Pontevedra (1), Huelva (1), León (1), Cádiz (1), Albacete (1), Vizcaya (1), Navarra (1), Las Palmas (1), Seville (1), and Orense (1). Additionally, seven additional individuals are under investigation.
One of the suspects had up to 14 cloud storage accounts, and a search of his residence revealed a substantial number of illicit images on a variety of devices. Five of the arrests were made in Madrid. More than 10 gigabytes of child pornography were stored in a cloud storage account and an instant messaging app by another suspect, who was apprehended in Albacete.
Investigators identified two instances of sexual assault against juveniles.
It was discovered that one of the individuals involved in the incident, who was apprehended in Salamanca, was allegedly involved in the sexual assault of two juvenile girls. The officers’ investigation also disclosed that one of the individuals arrested in the province of Castellón was using a video game console to store images of child pornography.
During a search of a detainee’s residence in the province of Vizcaya, it was discovered that he had 50 GB of cloud storage, of which 48 GB was used to preserve images of child sexual assaults.
Two video game consoles, 39 hard drives, 46 memory cards, 27 USB drives, 58 mobile phones, 16 laptops, and 6 desktop computers—as well as documentation pertinent to the investigation— were seized in a total of 42 investigations.
Collaboration between investigators from the Central Cybercrime Unit and service providers has been essential in the fight against child pornography trafficking.
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