Police officers have arrested 121 people, 37 of them in Andalucía, in connection with child pornography and the internet. A further 96 people have been charged with possession and distribution of paedophile material within the network.
Operation ‘Carousel’ began in July 2007 and has involved cooperation with the police forces of numerous countries. The investigation uncovered around 18,000 connections to internet service providers in 72 different countries where paedophile material was involved.
The Brigada de Investigación Tecnológica (BIT), in conjunction with various local police forces, decided to concentrate on the 1,600 connections relating to Spain. Three files in particular, referenced as ‘preteen’ or ‘preteen hardcore’, were located and it was subsequently possible to identify 250 homes where this material had been downloaded.
Search warrants were requested and 800 National Police were involved in searching 210 houses in 42 provinces. Millions of video and photographic images have been seized as well as 347 hard drives, 36 laptops, over 1,000 dvd’s and numerpous other storage devices.
The sheer volume of material and hardware means that it will be some time before it has all been analysed, the objective being to check for possible connections to other paedophile networks or groups.
The detainees are from all age groups, educational backgrounds and professions and include a National Police officer, a Guardia Civil trainee and a member of the Intelligence Service based in Madrid. Two of those arrested not only accessed and shared child pornography via the internet, but also produced their own material. Researchers have been able to identify the two victims of abuse as relatives of the abusers.