Over 930,000 files of child pornography seized by the Loiret gendarmes

120 children and adolescents victims, including 22 French children. Orléans research police have just dismantled two encrypted messaging groups in which men exchanged more than 930,000 files of child pornography, France Inter has revealed.

After a year and a half of investigation, authorities made arrests between April 2023 and early February six suspicious, men aged 36 to 61according to an investigation by France Inter published on Thursday 22 February.

An investigation began in 2022

This investigation began in August 2022 after the Loiret gendarmes were reported to an internet page with photos of minors, some of them in swimsuits or others, dancing in a suggestive way.

If some reported images flirt with legality, investigators eventually realize that the page hides several messaging groups, where some users are much more explicit.

“Once we start chatting with these people, very quickly they will suggest we move to other more discreet social networks or secure messaging systems », he explains to France Inter Damiandirector of investigations. “Some suggest, for example, switching to the Russian ICQ network, where the files exchanged are illegal.”

Some defendants pretended to be teenagers on the Internet

The gendarmes then realized that these images did not appear in any of the databases that allow the authorities to identify existing data on child pornography. In this sentence, the 120 registered victims are aged between 3 and 15 years.

In that case, the men arrested, some of whom are fathers, are suspected of having committed the rapes and sexual assaults visible in some of the images. Some are already known for similar acts and are suspected of assault children around them, while others, to underage prostitutes. Some of them posed as teenagers on the Internet and seduced victims into obtaining nude photos.

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