An international operation involving law enforcement agencies from over a dozen countries and INTERPOL has arrested 20 suspects for production and distribution of child sexual abuse content.
The operation was kicked of by Spain in late 2024 when specialised officers discovered instant messaging groups dedicated to the circulation of child sexual exploitation images. Further investigation revealed the identities of the perpetrators, with INTERPOL and Europol alerting authorities in relevant countries.
Spanish police ended up arresting seven suspects during a joint operation. The suspects included a teacher charged with sharing child sexual abuse material online and a healthcare worker who allegedly paid minors from Eastern Europe for explicit images. Searches carried out during the operation led to multiple device seizures, including desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, and digital storage devices.
With INTERPOL’s support, 10 more suspects were arrested in Latin America across seven target countries. These arrests include three in El Salvador and a teacher from Panama. Arrest details of the remaining suspects haven’t been disclosed, but INTERPOL claims they were arrested “elsewhere in Europe and the United States.”
The operation has also identified 68 additional suspects, with the investigation continuing globally. Findings from the operation has been shared with law enforcement agencies of 28 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.
This isn’t 2025’s first operation targeting CSAM distribution either. A similar operation by the German and Dutch law enforcement shut down Kidflix in March 2025, a disturbingly popular platform for hosting, sharing, and streaming child sexual abuse material with a total of 1.8 million users logging on between April 2022 and March 2025.
The operation started in 2022 and has since resulted in 79 arrests, 1,393 identified suspects, and more than 3,000 devices confiscated between March 10 and March 23, 2025. It was also supported by Europol’s European Cybercrime Center (EC3), which analyzed and provided thousands of videos as evidence to support the operation.
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