On Tuesday this week Prague police announced the arrest of a Czech man who they claim is among the world’s biggest distributors of child abuse images.
The man reportedly focused on homosexual child abuse images, and was among the world’s three largest distributors of such materials. He had been tracked by the American FBI for the past decade, and was wanted by Europol.
“This was an elderly Czech citizen who had also obtained American citizenship in the past and was already described by the American media as an ‘electronic genius’ in the 1980s,” said Prague police spokeswoman Kristýna Zelinková, as reported by Novinky.
“The American FBI recorded information about this person and his activities for almost ten years. However, the identity of this man was only revealed on the basis of an international operation coordinated by Europol.”
It was reportedly through this Europol information that the authorities were able to detain the man and access his network and data.
“He mainly focused on the distribution of material created by other persons and also provided advice to others on how to sexually abuse underage boys, or how to effectively spread child pornography on the darknet,” the police spokeswoman added.
Police say that they have managed to obtain several terabytes of data, and that he faces up to 8 years in prison if convicted of producing and distributing child pornography, along with the misdemeanour of abusing a child to produce pornography.
The arrest took place in the country’s capital city of Prague, and took place after a year-long operation to find his whereabouts. Police declined to identify the exact part of the city they had located him in, and noted that investigations were ongoing.