Micheal Esser faltered when he spoke on Wednesday about the fate of the 65 children and adolescents who, thanks to the work of the Special Organizational Organization (BAO) Berg in the Cologne police headquarters and the Central and Contact Point Cybercrime (ZAC) of the Cologne public prosecutor's office, have been working since the end of 2019 could be freed from the clutches of their pedophile tormentors. The investigators had seen “enormous suffering”, said the detective director at the press conference on the BAO's final balance sheet. Sometimes the situation was surreal, for example when children cried after separating from perpetrators. During a hearing, a girl from Aachen desperately clung to a stuffed animal that her uncle had given him. “The tragedy took us all with it,” reads the report from the Aachen head of operations, which Esser reads out loud.It was precisely this uncle who tortured and raped the child. "Even the most experienced investigators were shocked by the severity of the abuse."

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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The Berg case is one of the largest abuse complexes in Germany, and it is also attracting international circles: 439 suspects were identified, 27 arrests were made, 13 of them in North Rhine-Westphalia;

seven cases were submitted to Austria, France, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

The case got started at the end of 2019 with the arrest of Jörg L. in Bergisch Gladbach.

L. had severely sexually tortured and raped his little daughter for many months and shared recordings of it in internet chats with other perpetrators.

By evaluating electronic data carriers and countless chat histories, the police and public prosecutor quickly tracked down more and more suspects.

More than 4700 data carriers secured

The matter assumed such enormous dimensions early on that the Cologne police chief Uwe Jacob decided to take an unusual step to free identified victims from acute abuse situations as quickly as possible: he set up a permanent staff.

The instrument is otherwise only used for major events such as hostage-taking and terrorist situations.

There were two missions across Germany coordinated from Cologne, each with more than 60 simultaneous searches of apartments.

Courier drivers regularly brought evidence to public prosecutors in other federal states overnight. In five cases, the Cologne investigators even used police helicopters to avoid losing a minute longer than necessary. At times, more than 340 police officers from all over North Rhine-Westphalia were deployed in the BAO Berg. In the snowball process, new investigative approaches and evidence came together: More than 4,700 data carriers such as cell phones, computers, hard drives or USB sticks were seized.

"Without the BAO structure, we would not have been able to cope with the task," says Police President Jacob. Detective Director Esser is also certain: BAO Berg has set new standards in the fight against child abuse. Nevertheless, both are sure that it is now time to dissolve the BAO. The remaining cases are not concerned with acute abuse of children, but “only” with the possession of child pornographic material. They are now being processed by an investigative commission.

There is also an additional commissioner's office in Cologne. And the child abuse task force set up by the ZAC at the beginning of the Berg case has not been a pilot project since October, but a permanent establishment. "The deeds of pedophile criminals have a digital environment," says ZAC director Marcus Hartmann. "Our work does not end with the BAO, it is an important chapter in the fight against child abuse, but just one chapter."

Police President Jacob says that the Lügde, Münster and Bergisch Gladbach cases had made it clear to a broad public that sexual abuse does not take place anywhere in the world, but rather "in the midst of us" and continuously.

He was very pleased with the 13 court rulings so far in the Berg case, with a total of more than 80 years 'imprisonment - Jörg L. received twelve years' imprisonment with subsequent preventive detention.

But then Jacob stated soberly: "I do not think that we have achieved significant deterrence."