Status: 03.02.2023 2:51 p.m
In the fight against the spread of depictions of sexualised violence against children, investigators have shut down three platforms on the dark web. Several suspects have been arrested.
Bavarian investigators have struck a blow against operators of platforms on the Darknet, on which recordings of sexualized violence against children are said to have been distributed. The Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (LKA) and the Central Office for Cybercrime in Bamberg announced that several suspects had been arrested in the USA, Great Britain and Germany. They are said to have worked as administrators, programmers or moderators of the platforms.
Three Darknet platforms have been shut down, it said. Several thousand users from Germany and abroad were active there, who distributed more than 20,000 pictures and videos and published 120,000 postings every month.
Targeted platforms since November 2019
The action was preceded by several years of intensive investigations. Officials first became aware of the three platforms in November 2019. As part of the evaluation of the evidence seized, the Bavarian investigators made references to the USA, Great Britain and Australia.
In the first half of 2022, the US federal police FBI arrested an administrator and a programmer in the USA. In November, a main administrator and two moderators in Great Britain were arrested.
In Bonn, officials arrested another moderator at the beginning of November. The 22-year-old, who is in custody, is accused, among other things, of making child pornographic content “accessible to gangs” in a large number of cases.
According to the LKA, all three Darknet platforms were no longer accessible after the arrests and the conclusion of the international campaign. So far, no member of the platform has been able to get these pages up and running again.
Investigators identify numerous users
The Bamberg senior public prosecutor Thomas Goger, head of the center for combating child pornography and sexual abuse on the Internet, which is based at the central office for cybercrime, said that the LKA and the special public prosecutor’s office had meticulously determined and had shown staying power.
Numerous users of the platforms have also been identified. For example, a 62-year-old was arrested in Bavaria in May 2021. More than 800,000 pictures and videos were found with the man. According to the officials, the criminal proceedings against him have not yet been concluded.