Poland’s Central Bureau for Fighting Cybercrime (CBZC) has busted a group of 64 people involved in the possession and sharing of child sexual abuse content.
From October 22 to 30, over 400 CBZC officers carried out 106 searches and secured almost 1,200 devices with almost 350,000 files of illegal content under an operation code-named ‘Carlos.’
“This was a large-scale analytical and operational effort to identify sex offenders,” CBZC announced on Friday.
“Officers have secured a total of 1,162 computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices containing roughly 350,000 files of photographic and video material depicting paedophilic content, in some of the material the victims were children of infant age,” CBCZ said.
The searches took place on a national scale and were carried out by a group of officers specialised in catching child predators. Further legal proceedings were conducted in cooperation with the National Prosecutor’s Office and prosecutors all over the country.
“Police officers also worked with Europol and the US non-profit organisation National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC),” CBZC added.
According to the Bureau, those detained were charged with the possession and spreading of child sexual abuse content and 33 of them were temporarily arrested.
The ‘Carlos’ operation is the third of its kind performed by the CBZC. So far the Bureau has secured over half a million illegal files and detained 157 people.