• Germany edition
An archive picture of a kiddie porn bust. Photo: DPA

Police bust child pornography ring

Published: 25 Feb 10 17:12 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100225-25511.html

Police in the city of in Münster announced on Thursday they had broken up a major child pornography ring, raiding houses across Germany and arresting eight suspects.

After an investigation lasting several months, police made the raids Wednesday morning, apprehending eight people on suspicion of possessing kiddie porn material.

Three of the suspects are also accused of multiple cases of child sex abuse, according to the authorities.

The police started the investigation after they picked up a 47-year-old man in Münster in November who was in the possession of a million items of child pornography. Examination of this seized material led police to conduct the nationwide raids on Wednesday.

One of the suspects is a child model agent who had distributed pictures of naked children that were apparently taken secretly, they said. Through their investigation, police came across three more suspects in the United States and informed police there.

The announcement came as German Family Minister Kristina Schröder said the government planned a new approach to combating child pornography on the internet, admitting her predecessor Ursula von der Leyen’s approach had not worked.

The much-derided law allowing authorities to block sites – which von der Leyen pushed and the government passed but now does not want to use – could also be used to delete child pornography, she said.

In a tacit criticism of her predecessor, she said: “Certainly it would have been better to involve the internet community more. I have realised that myself.”

The Local (news@thelocal.de)

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Your comments about this article:

18:49 February 25, 2010 by Edmond Schindler
Bravo to the work of the authorities, to the subject matter what I think can not be printed here. Grateful that this has been stopped.
15:51 February 26, 2010 by biker hotel harz
Completely agree. I read recently that Germany has one of the worst people - trafficking records in Europe, despite years of 'co-operation' between the German (who have put very little effort in apparently) and Czech authorities (who deny there's a problem of any scale). Evidentally, more child prostitution takes place on the German/ Czech border (and mostly perpertrated by Germans by all accounts border hopping) than any other point in Europe and also transit point for an estimated 1000's of children who go missing in the old eastern bloc states every year. The German attitude to sex has not helped matters either, taking a lead from Swedish sex education experts a few years ago, the German authorities released advice pamphlets to parents advocating ............... well I'm not going to describe it here for the sake of decency but you can believe it made pretty unbelievable reading. The pamplets were available in Kindergartens but were withdrawn after a public outcry.

Of course I guess when it comes to abuse in the home, you never know sometimes what goes on behind closed doors.

The perpetrators should be strung up!
16:59 February 26, 2010 by tollermann
I thought that it didn't matter what someone does in Germany? You know the government out of my bedroom stuff....
17:12 February 27, 2010 by lordwilliams629
I'm for anything that protects children, people sell child porn should get hard time, those who make it from the children themselfs should get no less than 40 years to life. The number of young lifes that these people destroy is beyond sad.
14:34 February 28, 2010 by Talonx
Tollermann, you have absolutely no heart.
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