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Postal police agents infiltrate the folds of Telegram and WhatsApp and discover the horror: 16 groups of child pornography dismantled. It is, in short, the ‘Luna Park’ operation: more than 300 postal police men on the ground who, from the early hours of the morning, carried out flagrant searches and arrests in 53 provinces and 18 Italian regions, including Puglia. . This is the largest police operation in recent years against online child pornography.
After two years of ‘undercover’ investigations carried out on the internet, the Milan Postal Police and the CNCPO – National Center for Combating Child Pornography Online of the Rome Postal Police Service, coordinated by Deputy Prosecutors Fusco and Mannella together with the deputies Barilli Tarzia of the Milan District Prosecutor, identified 432 users who, taking advantage of the potential of the widespread applications of WhatsApp and Telegram, participated in ‘channels’ and ‘groups’ intended to share photos and videos of child pornography showing violence real sexual against minors; the abuses, in particular, affected mainly girls and boys and, in some cases, even babies.
The phenomenon also affected some of the provinces of Apulia, where 4 searches were carried out (3 in the province of Bari, 1 in the province of Taranto), which resulted in the seizure of 5 smartphones used by the suspects, of between 18 and 50 years old. a few years, all without work. The suspects were referred to the authorities and the seized material was made available to the investigating authority.
Of the 159 groups identified by postal police investigators, 16 were real criminal associations, within which it was possible to distinguish promoters, organizers and participants, with well-defined roles and tasks. Each group was governed by strict and precise rules of conduct aimed at preserving the anonymity – and therefore “safety” – of the criminal association, as well as of the individual participants. The violation of these rules implied, in fact, the expulsion by the administrators. The long and widespread investigation has made it possible to name the nicknames used in the network by pedophiles, bringing them to light and out of the anonymity of the network.
81 Italians have been identified by the Milan postal police, two of whom, a 71-year-old optician with university collaborations from Naples and an unemployed 20-year-old Venetian, were promoting and managing child pornography groups, organizing their activities and recruiting new associates around the world. . Transnationality is a trait that unites all the groups discovered by the infiltrated agents. In fact, 351 foreign users are involved in the survey, for each of which all useful computer traces have been collected for identification. These elements, shared through the Police Service of Posts and Communications with international police cooperation agencies, allowed their arrest both in Europe and in the rest of the world.
The activity carried out highlighted how the criminal phenomenon in question is absolutely transversal, since among the suspects there are people of very heterogeneous social backgrounds and ages, such as established professionals, workers, students, retirees, private and public employees, of which one is a vigilant traffic and several unemployed, aged between 18 and 71 years. Finally, with reference to the geographical factor, it should be noted that the regions most affected are Lombardy and Campania. In fact, 35% of the suspects reside in these territories.
The personal, local and computer system searches carried out by the Milan District Prosecutor’s Office led to the seizure of mobile phones, tablets, hard drives, pen drives, computers and email accounts and social profiles. During the raids, the stories used by the suspects to request child pornography material and a large amount of illicit material stored in the computer media were also found.
Today’s activity is one more activity of the postal police that, it must be remembered, monitors the entire Internet network 24 hours a day to protect minors and all vulnerable groups. Prevention and contrast with the phenomenon of sexual exploitation of minors online see the postal police at the forefront. For this reason, it is of fundamental importance that all users report any illegal content found on the web, by contacting the Post and Communications Police and through the PS Online Police Station (www.commissariatodips.it), where useful guidelines and suggestions are proposed . contain the risks present in the network, both through the different Sections and Departments of the Postal Police present throughout the national territory.
