crime
Sexual violence against children online – investigators undercover
View into a room at the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia (LKA NRW): During an action against so-called cybergrooming, LKA employees pretend to be children and chat with people via platforms and social networks. photo
© Oliver Auster/dpa
When an investigator goes undercover at the “crime scene,” he takes on a new identity. Employees at the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia also do this, but online: They pose as children.
The police in North Rhine-Westphalia have carried out covert sexual violence against Children are being investigated on the Internet and 93 cases have now been initiated. “The numbers clearly show how big and dirty the swamp is in which my investigators are fishing,” said the head of the State Criminal Police Office (LKA), Ingo Wünsch.
Employees of the authority had posed as children on the Internet for two weeks and communicated with people, some of whom wanted to sexually harass them or coerce them into sexual acts. Cybergrooming refers to the targeted approach of children online to initiate sexual contacts.
Focus on Instagram
During the current campaign, the LKA employees focused primarily on the social network Instagram. As a dpa reporter observed during the operation, the specialists operated several accounts at the same time – through which they, as “pseudo children”, wrote primarily to strange men.
In the past, the police mainly used chat forums, where the perpetrators got to the point within seconds. “Do you want to see me naked?” a user asked in the second sentence under the protection of anonymity. The investigators deliberately created profiles on Instagram for the action weeks. There is still little experience with the network. It quickly becomes clear: the perpetrators take more time here than in the chat – but the strategies are the same.
“Some of them pretend to be children themselves,” said an online investigator: “So when we ask them, how old are you? And we say 11 or 13, for example, then they often write, yes me too – or: Yes, I’m 15, is that bad? So there are also some who openly write: But I’m already 48, bad?” If a perpetrator actually sends a nude photo or asks the “pseudo child” to perform sexual acts, everything is secured. Then the suspect must be brought out of anonymity.
A police officer involved emphasized: “This is just the tip of the iceberg.” And: “Hundreds, if not thousands of people could be employed there.” LKA boss Wünsch said: “No perpetrator should ever feel safe online.”