Colombia police said Thursday it has arrested one of the largest distributors of child pornography in the world.
A 27-year-old man was caught with a stash of just under 85,000 videos, the largest repository of pornography ever found in Colombia, consumed illegally by pedophiles across the globe.
The minors who appeared in the images and videos of the distributor’s external hard drives were in particular from Asia, Europe and Latin America.
The alleged child pornographer’s arrest just outside Medellin represents a significant triumph in the war on illegal cyber activity and in particular, child pornography.
The investigation to find the whereabouts of the offender began last March 4, when Interpol Colombia transmitted a report from the authorities of Manchester (UK) to the Colombian Police Cyber Center. According to the report, the UK authorities had captured a large distributor with the alias ‘Sobocki’ for the crime of child pornograpy.
During the investigation of the contacts of “Sobocki” it was determined that a large number of pornographic content had been distributed from two accounts in Colombia, according to the IP address.
At this point, national authorities were given the task of finding the Colombian who was part of this global network.
The emails containing the content corresponded to the alias “Loud Groan”, who sent the videos to various international organizations dedicated to the trafficking of the illegal material.
Through online tracking, Operation Manchester, as the Police called it, led to the seizure of the shocking figure of 84,850 hosted video and images of child pornography on the criminal’s computer.
“Experts in forensics, after analysis of the material, found what would become the largest repository of child pornography ever found in Colombia,” said Col. Fredy Bautista, head of the Police Cyber Center.
In Colombia, the penalty for the felony up to 20 years in prison and a fine between 150 and 1,500 minimum statutory monthly wage.