a network selling child pornography videos on Telegram dismantled in France

The Paris prosecutor’s office announced on Friday February 9 the dismantling of a child crime network which operated online. Ten people suspected of having held a group on the Telegram messaging application “offering the sale of ‘sex tapes’ of adolescents” were referred Thursday, according to a press release.

Following a report received in March, investigators identified the suspects “despite their use of pseudonyms and (…) an encrypted network”. Some are suspected of being the managers and administrators of the platform, continues public prosecutor Laure Beccuau.

Profits seized in cryptocurrencies

All will be judged for “possession and dissemination in an organized group of images of minors of a pornographic nature using an electronic communications network”.

This “operation carried out across France” allowed the discovery of “at least 15,000 illicit images”according to the press release.

“This operation is an opportunity to remind people that minors are particularly exposed to the dissemination of their image on the internet,” including within the framework of the “resale to users, or even to child criminal networks” of videos recorded in a private setting, recalls the press release from the prosecution. The benefit of the dismantled network is estimated at “more than 50,000 euros, part of which could have been seized in cryptocurrency”.