An International child porn ring has been toppled by Austrian police, after they caught a 37 year old man in possession of tens of thousands of photos and videos. Their investigations led to the identification of a further 52 individuals across Europe and as far as Mexico, Brazil and Iran, the Local has reported.
Police were first made aware of the man, who lives in the region of Styria, thanks to a tip off by the Swiss Coordination Unit for Cybercrime Control (CYCOS). Last spring they raided the man’s home and found a major stash of videos and pictures on a number of computer hard drives. According to Mario Hejl, a spokesman for the Federal Criminal Police (BK), the suspects are known to have exchanged images of both boys and girls via the internet.
“When it comes to heinous acts against young children and adolescents, it is important that offenders can never feel safe even in the supposedly anonymous internet,” Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner commented.
Six other Austrians and 35 German suspects are amongst those now being investigated. Other suspects hail from the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Mexico, Brazil and Iran. The Styrian man has now been turned over to the public prosecutor, but as the investigations into the other six Austrians are ongoing, police have declined to release any more details.
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