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With a nationwide large-scale raid, the police, led by the Cologne special investigation unit "BAO Berg", continued their investigation on Tuesday into the possession and distribution of child pornographic material.
In ten federal states - including Lower Saxony - residential properties were searched, evidence was seized and suspects were visited, as the director, criminal director Michael Esser, said in Cologne.
A total of 65 suspects who are suspected of possessing and distributing child pornographic material could have been identified and visited from a chat evaluation that began in Krefeld in autumn.
The approximately 1,000 evidence items that were seized include electronic data carriers, special sex toys and, as secondary finds, weapons and ammunition.
Last September, 50 suspects were reached in twelve federal states.
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The searches on Tuesday took place in Lower Saxony in North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony, Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg and Berlin.
No arrest warrants were issued in the raid, explained Esser.
With the help of the surprise effect, the main aim of this campaign was to gain access to electronic data carriers such as cell phones.
In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, 21 objects were searched for 16 suspects, in Bavaria there were 14 suspects.
Information leaked: "We will work this up intensively"
Esser pointed out that the raid was originally intended to be carried out over a longer period of time.
Apparently, however, journalists got information about the search.
As a consequence, the police visited the targeted objects and suspects faster than originally planned.
The large-scale action could be carried out completely.
The police will exchange ideas with the journalists concerned.
"We will work on that intensively."
As part of the large-scale raid, no children had to be freed from acute abuse or dangerous situations, emphasized Esser.
"Notes of this kind were dealt with immediately, nothing was left behind." However, a 13-year-old was given to the youth welfare office on Tuesday due to an unclear residence situation.
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The head of the "BAO Berg" emphasized that the police would not give up the fight against pedo criminals and would continue to put pieces of the puzzle together.
All technical possibilities would be used to end the suffering of the children.
"Anyone who downloads child pornography must know that a child was abused for this."
Markus Hartmann from the central and contact point Cybercrime NRW referred to the necessary international cooperation.
The investigative work in this field is regularly international, as platforms or messenger services are based abroad.
It is about the organization of international requests for legal assistance and the identification of the personal details of suspects behind digital profiles and nicknames.
Especially in the field of child pornography, the collaboration has been good, cooperative and amicable, said Hartmann and highlighted Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit.
They processed inquiries from the authorities "extremely quickly".
According to the information, the interim balance of the "BAO Berg" is now with 330 identified accused, seven of them are in custody, eleven are accused.
Judgments have already been made for ten suspects, two of which have become final, it said.
In the past, 52 children were freed from abuse and dangerous situations by the “BAO Berg”.
In the meantime, seven proceedings have been handed over to other countries, including Austria, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Finland.
In connection with the crime complex, which became known through a case in Bergisch Gladbach, the investigators are checking traces of around 30,000 possible suspects.
One of the alleged main perpetrators from Bergisch Gladbach, who among other things had seriously abused his own daughter several times and distributed pictures and videos of the crimes on the Internet, was sentenced to twelve years in prison and subsequent preventive detention in November last year.