An alert from the United States led to the capture of three individuals in the Alicante province for storing child pornography. The operation was part of a nationwide crackdown in which fifteen people across Spain were arrested for cloud-stored material involving minors, according to the National Police Headquarters.
According to the police report, officers from the National Police detained a group of fifteen people in several Spanish provinces on suspicion of storing child pornography in an investigation sparked by collaboration with the United States through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The operation began when specialized units of the Cybercrime Central Unit received information related to online sexual exploitation of minors, provided by the U.S. DHS and NCMEC. This organization has the legal authority to collect complaints from the content industry, classify them, and disseminate them to countries abroad. After receiving the data, investigators analyzed it using intelligence processes to identify the most serious cases and to recognize different reports that referred to the same individual. In this case, fifteen distinct individuals were identified, all accused of storing images in the cloud.
In León, a person was arrested for storing such material on a mobile phone and in the cloud. During the search, a conversation with another Spanish citizen emerged, in which child pornography was exchanged after they met in a local television chat. The investigation into the second target placed him in Alicante, and it was learned that he had previously been detained in 2018 on charges of trafficking child pornography. During the new entry and search, two mobile phones storing more than six thousand illegal files were seized, and he was arrested and handed over to the judiciary.
Also in Alicante, the holder of an email account was found to have produced nine separate reports due to the volume of exploitative imagery stored there. The search confirmed the crime not only by observing a large number of photos and videos on the phone and computer of the person who created the account, but also because his brother consumed similar images and participated in chats dedicated to them. Both were arrested and presented to the judiciary.
He Abused His Partner’s 9-Year-Old Daughter
The suspect from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria clearly showed his intentions, as the account he used referenced sexual images of minors. Not only did authorities find numerous illegal images, but the partner’s nine-year-old daughter had suffered abuse by the detainee. Following the arrest for possessing child pornography, formal accusations were filed for those offenses.
In Puertollano, a man appeared to be in Madrid at first glance. During the search, authorities found indiscriminate amounts of child pornography not only on the mobile phone but also in various clouds. A separate individual, detained in Pontevedra, had up to 44 videos and five photographs seized, ruling out any chance of accidental possession.
The Sevilla arrestee possessed nearly 800 photos and 34 videos of explicit child content. The files were found on his mobile phone, which he downloaded onto a laptop during the raid.
In Tenerife, an Italian national who had faced allegations on ten prior occasions was detained after child pornography was found on his devices, including hard drives and a mobile phone.
In Valladolid, two distinct cases were recorded. The first involved a 20-year-old Spanish man who resisted arrest by striking a police officer in the face, requiring four officers to restrain him. It was confirmed that he was the alleged perpetrator of possessing child pornography, with added charges of assault and resisting law enforcement.
A similar arrest occurred in Zaragoza, where a man was found with an active download session of such material when officers entered his home.