Spanish Police Make 81 Arrests in Child Pornography Operation

Spanish police have made some serious moves to crackdown on child pornography. On Saturday the Spanish authorities arrested 79 men and two children. Police advised two men were also mentally disabled.

With the help of some specially advanced "cyberpatrols", 300 police were able to lead a nationwide search to locate those involved in ingesting, creating, distributing child porn, also known as "child sexual abuse imagery."

The broader and more encompassing term "child sexual abuse imagery" refers to content that depicts sexually explicit activities involving a child. Child sexual abuse images and videos are most often documented with the purpose of being shared widely for others to watch, and in so doing, victimizing the child many times over "explains Thorn.

Thorn is an organization that partners with tech industry giants, the government, and Non-governmental organizations to "leverage technology to combat predatory behavior, rescue victims, and protect vulnerable children."

Thorn notes child sexual abuse imagery "is shared freely on peer-to-peer networks, where users believe they are safe from the law."

However the Spanish governments use "cyberpatrols helped them to discover "dozens of people online exchanging the illicit material, at times using peer-to-peer networks. While most of the images shared were of children being abused, some featured images of sadism and bestiality," explains International Business Times.

The police and cyberpatrols seized computers and cameras from the residences of the child pornography suspects. Across 28 provinces the police searched 80 homes seizing 96 hard drives, 58 computers, 68 flash drives, four tablets, 195 CDs and DVDs, 18 mobile phones, 25 memory cards, among other pieces of electronics, reports CNN. These devices reportedly contained disturbing images of abused children. Police also said, "some of the images seized by police are extremely harsh and show sadism and bestiality." The investigation is not done yet. "The agents are continuing to analyze the material seized to determine if there had been crimes of producing child pornography, sexual abuse of minors or connection with pedophiles," Spanish police said in a statement.

Moreover, the police are expecting to make more arrests with their technological probes.

Spanish police seem to be doing their due diligence. As International Business Times points out, in 2008 the Spanish police detained more than 120 people in another operation against child pornography.