A global paedophile ring that shared ‘extremely violent’ child porn on WhatsApp has been busted after 33 people in 11 countries were arrested.
In Spain, 17 people were arrested, 14 of whom were teenage boys. Another nine were being held for investigation and the youngest boy that got arrested was just 15.
Most of those arrested in Spain were minors and the youngest was just 15, police spokesman Eduardo Casas said.
They were arrested for storing and sharing pornographic files, which in some cases were ‘extremely serious’.
He indicated some involved the graphic abuse and rape of very young children, including ‘babies of just a few months up to children aged 11 or 12’.
A mother who abused her daughter and sent pictures of it to the WhatsApp group was arrested in Uruguay, according to Indiario.
Following several tipoffs by email, police discovered ‘a Whatsapp group formed by minors, in which several participants had normalized the existence of child pornography and the sexual abuse of other minors’.
As well as sharing files, they had even produced ‘stickers’ – small, digital images like emojis which can be readily shared online – showing ‘very young children being abused’.
In one case, a 29-year-old man was arrested for not only downloading child pornography but for encouraging other group members to make contact with young girls who could be exploited, particularly migrants who were unlikely to approach the police for help.
A total of 20 people were arrested in Europe – 17 in Spain, and three others in Italy, France and the United Kingdom.
A further 10 were arrested in Latin America – four in Ecuador, two in Uruguay, two in Peru and two in Costa Rica. Another three were picked up in India, Pakistan and Syria.
The Chemosh operation, which has lasted for 26 months, has been carried out by the Spanish Central Cybercrime Unit of the National Police in collaboration with Interpol, EUROPOL and the police forces of Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, India, Italy, Pakistan, Peru, United Kingdom and Syria.
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