Joanne Oakley
POLICE have arrested 15 people for owning and distributing images and video of violent child sexual abuse on social networks in Spain.
The arrests were made across nine provinces, while six others have already been charged for their alleged involvement.
One of the detainees had allegedly paid €300 for disturbing images of very young children including babies.
Investigations began when information was received through the United States Embassy in Spain following several investigations carried out by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) of the United States.
A well-known social network had reported to the NCMEC that several of its users had published material depicting child sexual abuse.
Some of them continuously created new accounts with false data to be able to continue sharing the illegal files with other users on the social network.
Investigations identified 21 users in Spain who shared the graphic material of children through the social network.
From all 21 involved, police have seized; 19 mobile phones, 14 laptops, six hard drives, four memory sticks, three tablets, a memory card and three DVD discs, all containing a large number of illegal files.
The operation resulted in the arrest of 15 of them in the provinces of Barcelona, where four people were arrested; Madrid, where three arrests were made; Malaga, where two individuals were arrested, and Albacete, Badajoz, Las Palmas, Murcia, Orense and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, with one arrest in each location.
The remaining six have been charged.
Policia Nacional continues to warn users of any social network that sharing or saving such images of minors is a crime.
This type of content must be reported on the social network itself or to the police.
