WhatsApp child abuse group members arrested globally

The Spanish police recently released a statement saying that 33 arrests have been made all around the world with connection to a WhatsApp group where these people were sharing child abuse and child sex videos with each other.

According to the report, arrests have been made in 11 different countries around the world but most of the arrests have been in Spain itself with a total of 17 people being arrested there and from these 17 arrests most of the people being investigated in Spain are also minors and below the age of 18 including a 15 year old boy. According to the police, everyone who was arrested in Spain was a male with no females being arrested by the Spanish police making the majority of the members of this WhatsApp group male.

This was a total of 20 people that were arrested in Europe and three others in Italy, France and the United Kingdom respectively.

The Spanish police received an anonymous tip about this WhatsApp group almost 2 years ago and they have been investigating the group ever since. They then contacted the proper authorities of the countries that the members belonged to including Ecuador police, Costa Rica police, Europol and Interpol, Uruguay police, UK, Peru, India, Italy, France, Pakistan and Syria.

This operation was termed the The Chemosh operation with all the countries mentioned in above being part of this operation that took 26 whole months to carry out.

Arrests were made in these countries by concerned authorities. In Uruguay, a mother was arrested for posting images and video of her who she abused and then shared those videos and images with the WhatsApp group. A man, 29 was arrested for downloading shared content and also encouraging everyone to get close and make contact with young girls for such content especially immigrants because they will be less likely to take this matter to the police.

According to reports, the WhatsApp group shared content of a paedophilic nature which was very extreme. Some of the members created WhatsApp stickers of children being abused. Some of the content shared on the group was within legal limits but was not suitable for minors to see and as we already discussed a lot of the members of the group were in fact minors.

Sensitive Content such as child abuse being monitored including WhatsApp

Such sensitive content is not only illegal to create but also to share and to possess. Law enforcement agencies everywhere including here in Pakistan are always monitoring such content being shared online and tracking people responsible. Most people think that by using VPN’s or virtual numbers to signup to these types of groups on different platforms makes them safe however, that is not the case and there is always a workaround that these agencies know about. Pakistani authorities are now seeking help of a Canadian firm to monitor all internet traffic in the country and censor sensitive content too. Hopefully as a result, more people involved in such activities will soon be tracked and taken down by relevant authorities.