Eleven people have been arrested in various German regions by police on suspicion of sexually abusing several children and of filming their crimes, police in Münster, western Germany, said on Saturday. Investigators identified at least three children, ages 5, 10 and 12, as one of the victims.
Seven suspects already known to justice
Seven people, several of whom were already "unfavorably known" to the judiciary, have been placed in preventive detention, said at a press conference the chief of police of Münster, Rainer Furth. In all, six men and a woman are suspected either of having directly abused children, or of having participated in the logistics of these misdeeds or exchanged information via encrypted messaging.
The main accused is a 27-year-old man from Münster, working on a farm and computer enthusiast, said the investigators. Hard drives containing up to 500 terabytes of data, including videos and photos, were seized from his cellar.
Also on remand are his 45-year-old mother - owner of the Münster summer house where the events took place and who allegedly left him the keys while knowing what was going on in the house - as well as men aged between 30 and 43 from Staufenberg (Lower Saxony), Hanover, Schorfheide (Brandenburg), Kassel or Cologne.
At least three victims aged 5, 10 and 12
According to the investigators, two of the victims are the 10-year-old son of the 27-year-old man's partner and the 5-year-old son of an accused living in Staufenberg. The third victim, 12, is said to be the nephew of the accused, originally from Kassel. He allegedly directly abused the boy, according to the data seized. "These men, if we can call them that, proceeded treacherously by encrypting all their discussions on their laptops," said the head of the investigation Joachim Poll.
Abuses "for several hours"
The investigators said they were particularly shocked at the press conference, explaining in particular that the videos showed how four men alternately abused for "several hours" the two boys of 5 and 10 years old. "You can't imagine it," said Joachim Poll. North Rhine-Westphalia, the scene of this new pedophilia scandal, has already been in the headlines since early 2019 due to several cases of serious sexual abuse of children.
For example, at a campsite in Lügde, several men had sexually abused children hundreds of times for years before being arrested in a case that had deeply shocked the country.