Crime: Huge child pornography platform shut down

Published on October 8, 2024

According to NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU), a large darknet platform for child pornography content has been shut down after a strike against leading backers. The number of users on the site is in the hundreds of thousands. The case is "dizzyingly large," said Reul.

One of the seven suspects is a 69-year-old man from Rhineland-Palatinate. He is said to be from the Koblenz area.

Unlike the other six accused, he is not in custody, according to the Interior Ministry in Mainz. Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Minister Michael Ebling (SPD) spoke of a "major blow against an internationally active ring." The success of the manhunt shows "that all efforts in the fight against child pornography are worthwhile," the minister told the German Press Agency in Mainz. Perpetrators who are active on the darknet are also being caught.

There were searches in six federal states in September, and Rhineland-Palatinate forces were also involved, said Ebling. One of the measures was related to the suspect from Rhineland-Palatinate.

Suspects are said to be the "leading backers" of the darknet platform

Investigators were able to secure extensive evidence, it was said in Duisburg. A total of 1,517 items of evidence such as laptops and cell phones were found. The DVDs and video cassettes seized alone filled 94 moving boxes. The exact amount of data cannot currently be estimated. A data volume of 13.5 terabytes was to be evaluated on the computer of a single suspect - that corresponds to around 3.4 million photos, said the minister.

The other suspects are two 45 and 56 year old men from North Rhine-Westphalia, a 43 year old from Schleswig-Holstein, a 61 year old from Baden-Württemberg, a 62 year old from Lower Saxony and a 45 year old from Bavaria.

Together with the man from Rhineland-Palatinate, they are considered the "leading backers" of the darknet platform. They are being investigated for gang-related distribution of child pornography. Image and video files showing the sexual abuse of underage girls are being distributed on the darknet platform.

© dpa-infocom, dpa:241008-930-254903/1

Source: Die Zeit