35 Paedophiles Arrested, Four in Alicante, for Storing and Sharing Child Pornography

Police crackdown on child pornography in Spain. The National Police have arrested 35 paedophiles in 21 provinces, including four in Alicante, for storing and sharing child pornography via instant messaging, according to a statement from the force.

During the operation, it was discovered that one of the detainees had sexually assaulted two young girls. In addition to those arrested, seven individuals have been investigated for using child pornography storage services, and 112 storage devices were seized in 42 raids.

The investigation began following a citizen's email alerting to a possible link containing images of child sexual exploitation. With the cooperation of cloud storage companies and internal data cross-referencing with police authorities, information was obtained about those who allegedly downloaded these images.

After a complex analysis by investigators, 35 individuals involved in storage and exchange were apprehended across various Spanish provinces - Madrid (5), Alicante (4), Barcelona (4), Castellón (3), Valencia (3), Málaga (2), Salamanca (1), Asturias (1), Cáceres (1), La Rioja (1), Pontevedra (1), Huelva (1), León (1), Cádiz (1), Albacete (1), Vizcaya (1), Navarra (1), Las Palmas (1), Sevilla (1), Orense (1) - and seven others are under investigation.

Five arrests were made in Madrid, where one detainee used up to 14 different cloud storage accounts, and a large number of illicit images were found during a home search. Another detainee, arrested in Albacete, stored over 10 gigabytes of child pornography content both in a cloud storage account and a messaging app.

Following the arrest of one of the suspects in Salamanca, it was found that he had allegedly participated in the sexual assault of two young girls. Investigations also revealed that one detainee in Castellón used a video game console to store child pornography images.

During a search of a detainee's home in Vizcaya, a 50 GB cloud storage was seized, with 48 GB filled with images of child sexual assaults.

In total, 42 raids were conducted, resulting in the seizure of 39 hard drives, 46 memory cards, 27 USB drives, 58 mobile phones, 16 laptops, six desktop computers, two video game consoles, and relevant documentation for the investigation.

Collaboration between service providers and investigators from the Central Cybercrime Unit has been crucial in combating child pornography trafficking, according to the National Police.