Agents of the National Police have arrested 16 individuals in Spain for purchasing access to a child pornography platform on the dark web using cryptocurrency payments.
This investigation is part of an international effort aimed at dismantling one of the world’s largest platforms for distributing paedophilic material.
Some detainees not only uploaded and viewed videos; they also abused minors
The investigation has been coordinated by EUROPOL and led by Germany, covering a total of 38 countries, resulting in 79 arrests and 1,393 individuals identified. Some of the detainees not only uploaded and viewed videos but also abused minors.
The investigation is still ongoing. In Spain, it has been conducted in the provinces of Alicante, Almería, Barcelona, Jaén, Las Palmas, La Rioja, Madrid, Málaga, Murcia, Orense, Sevilla, Tarragona, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Valencia, and Zaragoza.
Investigators have blocked access to a site that served as a repository for child sexual exploitation recordings, which was continuously growing and had nearly two million subscribers and 91,000 videos, a quantity that increased at a rate of 3.5 videos per hour.
Two arrests in the Canary Islands
In Arrecife, Las Palmas, another individual under investigation, a Madrid resident living in Lanzarote, was found with evidence of payments made, leading to his arrest and subsequent judicial proceedings.
On the island of Tenerife, authorities located an individual who possessed a large amount of child pornography across several instant messaging chats. Furthermore, he was also using cloud storage services and had records of payments to the platform.
The “Stream” operation has been the largest operation ever managed by EUROPOL experts in the fight against child sexual exploitation, and one of the most significant cases supported by the agency in recent years.
