“A large number were transferred to a prosecutor, 13 were placed in pre-trial detention,” specifies the national delegate of the SGP Police-Force Ouvrière Unit union.
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They are accused of having shared child criminal content. 80 men have been arrested in 53 departments in mainland France and overseas since Monday December 4. “Great crackdown against child crime this week thanks to the exceptional mobilization of the police and gendarmes of the Minors Office that we created a few weeks ago”, declared Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior on Friday December 8 on X (ex-Twitter). “A large number were transferred to a prosecutor, 13 were placed in pre-trial detention”specified Linda Kebbab, national delegate of the SGP Police-Force Ouvrière Unit.
Among those arrested were: “teachers”, she specifies. Two teachers, an ambulance driver and a night supervisor in a home for disabled children specifically, according to information from franceinfo. The latter had already been convicted in a rape case. A total of fifteen men were placed in pre-trial detention, the others were placed under judicial supervision.
They are suspected of having shared hours of video or hundreds of child pornography images. According to investigators, these are particularly dangerous profiles given the volume of data found: 10,500 files and 160 computer media were seized by the gendarmerie, specifies France Inter.
One of the most important operations carried out in France
The operation which lasted 3 days was coordinated by the Minors Office and was carried out jointly by the police and the gendarmerie throughout the country. It is one of the most important operations ever carried out in France. These people are accused of sharing child criminal content. There is a diversity of profiles. “It is not a three-month investigation (since the Minors Office has existed), but a longer-term one which was managed by these same investigators” who worked “under another name”.
Linda Kebbab explained that “80 is an important number, it’s a number never seen before, but you should know that this group calls out several dozen people in joint searches, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 people from once, three or four times a year”. The national delegate of the SGP Police-Force Ouvrière Unit insisted on the fact that if “this is the first time that there have been 80, so that does not mean that there will be no arrests for the rest of the year”.
Child pornography images can be obtained “a little too easily”, regretted Linda Kebbab. Must go “on insider forums, with people who, under the cover of common criminal practices, pass on each other’s addresses. There are people who are known for acts of sexual assault, for acts of child molestation , child criminal content. These people were followed by the police who “have made the choice, within the framework of the Minors Office, to collect all the information, to coordinate investigations across the national territory for this dragnet”.