Authorities in Italy and seven other countries have arrested 35 people and identified dozens more in a sweeping crackdown on the distribution and possession of child sexual abuse material online.
Italian police arrested seven people and placed 30 under investigation following an operation led by Catania's cyber-security unit, with more than 100 officers conducting searches and seizing devices containing tens of thousands of illegal files. The suspects, aged 19 to 59, reside across 17 Italian cities.
In a separate coordinated operation involving 28 arrests across Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Germany, police seized more than 460 items including electronics, cryptocurrency wallets, narcotics, and doping substances. Three children were placed in protective custody, and one suspect had used artificial intelligence to generate abuse material. Norwegian investigators reportedly used new cryptocurrency-tracking methods to identify dark-web forum users.