Child pornography: massive ΕΛΑΣ operation in 21 cities in Greece

The operation, codenamed “Communicating Vessels” (Συγκοινωνούντα Δοχεία), was carried out by the prosecutor’s office for electronic crimes of the Greek police against Internet pornography, including child pornography.

First, tells CNN Greece, cops investigatively break into one of the darkest sites selling child porn videos, successfully impersonating customers. They have been able to identify victims and bring charges against people associated with an online platform that sells billions of porn videos.

The operation has so far identified 30 underage victims between 13 and 17 years old, whose videos and photos are being sold on this platform. The operation took place in 21 Greek cities, during the raids dozens of computers and mobile phones, tablets and memory cards were confiscated. In an official statement ΕΛΑΣ says:

A criminal case has been initiated against 32 people (31 Greek citizens and 1 foreigner), of which 6 people were arrested for the production and distribution of child and revenge pornography via the Internet. The largest operation was preceded by the proper use of information, as a result of a thorough investigation and many months of analysis of which it turned out that Internet users retained access to the servers of a popular page on the social network and distributed a large amount of domestic and foreign materials of sexual abuse of minors, as well as pornography of revenge by minors and adults.

In particular, by the way they acted, they disclosed the materials in their possession and requested communication through private messages for the purpose of selling or exchanging the files in question. In order to attract more people, they openly published some materials and even the names of underage or adult victims, on which they had relevant pornographic materials.

In many cases, they disclosed the city of residence of the victims or matched their materials with other, more popular social networks, so that in the future the recipients would be able to directly communicate with the victims and blackmail them into obtaining sums of money or additional materials. They regularly supplemented and updated the general content of the victims so that it was convenient to buy and / or exchange it on all servers.

These materials were made available in exchange for cash amounts ranging from 5 to 35 euros, for which users could receive:

• access to all materials stored on each server;
• full access to blocked channels, where the above material was grouped and classified based on the personal information of the victim or by area of ​​​​residence;
• the ability to “download” all the material under consideration via hyperlinks.

The information was brought to the attention of the competent prosecutor’s office, after which an investigation was carried out using special methods in the server channels and pornographic materials that were stored locally or in cloud computing accounts, in order to locate and identify the victims.

A link was established with the National Security Investigation Unit of the US Embassy in Athens and with a cloud computing company, where the hyperlinks in question were published, from which electronic traces and information about administrator users and server users appeared. The data obtained were once again brought to the attention of the prosecutor’s office, and from further correspondence with Internet providers, data on the persons involved were obtained and their place of residence was established.

From further investigations carried out with the assistance of other police services between 16 June 2023 and 26 June 2023 in the homes of the persons involved (Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Aigio, Corinth, Kalamata, Chalkidiki, Drama, Komotini, Kastoria, Kozani, Ptolemaida, Grevena, Igoumenitsa, Corfu, Karditsa, Volos, Farsala, Aliveri, Thebes and Rhodes) were discovered and confiscated:

• 32 mobile phones,
• 39 PC hard drives,
• 3 portable storage devices (USB),
• 2 SD memory cards,
• 11 laptops,
• tablet.

As a result of an on-site investigation conducted on digital evidence, the involvement of individuals in the case was established, while many of them revealed a large number of photo and video materials of identified victims – minors and adults who suffered from revenge pornography. Materials were stored locally or in the “cloud”. In some cases, they were found to have been sold to users for specific money transfers via electronic transactions, actions for which six people have been arrested.

So far, the investigation has identified 30 underage victims aged between 13 and 17 and 10 adult victims of revenge pornography. The detainees were taken to the competent prosecutor’s office and sent for interrogation.

As a reminder, citizens can contact the Electronic Crime Investigation Office anonymously or in name to provide information, report illegal or fraudulent activities on the Internet at the following contact details:

Telephone: 11188

By sending an email to: Email address is being protected from spambots. Javascript must be enabled in your browser to view the address.

Via twitter: @CyberAlertGR

Through gov.gr in Citizen and Daily Life/Complaints/Cybercrime Complaints

Via smartphone app CYBERKID“.

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