(Newswire.net— June 30, 2020) — The German judiciary is investigating 30,000 people suspected of pedophilia in the west of the country, German news agency Deutsche Welle reports.
The cybercrime unit of the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia is investigating some 30,000 suspects in a massive online child abuse probe, officials said on Monday, the DW reports.
“We want to extract from the anonymity of the Internet the perpetrators who abuse children and those who support them,” the justice minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, Peter Biesenbach, said at a press conference.
About 70 people have so far been suspected in the affair that broke out last fall in the town of Bergisch Gladbach. The suspects abused children for years and shared their recordings of those abuses with groups on the Internet.
Investigators have found 40 victims so far. German police were alerted by Canadian colleagues after they discovered pornographic content that included minors from that region in the west of Germany.
One man, 42, whose trial begins in August, has already been arrested. Investigators found a large amount of illegal pornographic material in his apartment.
Several groups with thousands of members were also discovered.
“Perpetrators who communicate on forums consider child abuse to be ‘normal’ and find a large number of people with whom they share the same ideas,” Biesenbach said.
He also said that in order to fight against child abuse on the Internet, it is necessary to discuss the legal regulations for data collection.
“One doesn’t work without the other,” Biesenbach said.
Earlier this month, some 11 people were arrested on suspicion of abusing children and filming their actions after videos and photos were seized from the cellar of a suspect in the western city of Münster. Investigators said they had identified at least three victims, aged five, 10, and 12 years old.