Five arrested for online sexual exploitation of children

Five men have been detained during specialised police operations by police officers from the "Cybercrime" Directorate of the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (GDBOP) aimed at combating online sexual exploitation of children. These operations were conducted across the country under the guidance of the relevant Prosecutor's offices over the past two weeks.

The arrested men, aged between 25 and 43 years, have been found to have committed criminal offenses, some of which are punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment.

Computer systems, laptops, flash drives, and other data storage devices containing a large amount of material depicting sexual abuse of children aged 2 months to 14 years, from both genders, have been seized from their homes.

During one of the special operations, a 30-year-old man was arrested for using the Dark Web to access a streaming platform that streams multimedia files containing child sexual abuse, for payment.

After creating an account on the illegal platform, users were granted free access to "preview" over 50,000 low-quality video clips with a limited duration of up to one minute. To access higher-quality content, clients were required to purchase individual subscriptions using cryptocurrencies or Litecoin addresses, which were generated specifically for each user, as identified by cyberpolice.

Two men have been arrested for using the network's resources to obtain and exchange files containing child sexual abuse material.

A user of a restricted-access group, created and administered in an encrypted online communicator for individuals sharing similar interests—sexual fantasies involving underage boys—was also detained.

Another identified sexual abuser used several false identities on separate dating apps in order to offer sexual services with girls to "like-minded" individuals for a fee.

Vladimir Dimitrov, Head of the "Cybercrime" Department at the General Directorate for Combatting Organised Crime: "A large part of the people we arrest for such crimes have been collecting such materials for years. It usually takes them several days to download such materials, organise them into folders on their computers and devices. They obtain them from specific places in cyberspace, from PR to PR networks. They access these places using specialised software."

Ivo Nikodimov, BNT: Did they themselves pay for these materials or did they distribute such materials for a fee?

"Only a small portion of the people we arrest use this activity to earn money in some way. The majority simply keep and share them for their own pleasure."