The National Police has arrested 41 people in 30 provinces in connection with child pornography.
The investigation began after many complaints were received, some of them anonymous, from the general public. Some 200 police officers were involved in the operation which led to the 41 arrests and the seizing of 100 hard drives and over a thousand other optical media devices.
Among the detainees are public officials, computer programmers, architects, farmers and electricians. The police are now investigating whether any of the detainees were not merely in possession of or distributing child pornography but actually involved in any abuse.
More than half the arrests were as a result of information received from an Italian source, Teléfono Arcobaleno, who reported the existence of a website in Germany where encrypted child pornography could be found and downloaded.