Q24N – Computers, flash drives, and CDs containing nude photos of teenage girls were found in the house of an unnamed former police officer last week.
Nude photos
The man, 37, reportedly posed as a teenage girl on Facebook and befriended other teenagers. After winning their trust, the pedophile asked for nude photos of the victims’ breasts, and after a few days, naked photos of their entire body.
According to authorities, a father of one of the victims residing in La Paz, filed a complaint claiming that another “girl” had asked her daughter for nude photos. Soon after, police started receiving similar complaints in the cities of La Paz and Las Piedras, both in the Canelones area.
In a joint operation of the Las Piedras’ local police and the cyber crime branch of the department of investigation, the suspect’s house in Montevideo was raided. The nude photos of the original complainant’s daughter was among the files found.
The suspect targeted girls aged 10 to 16 years old and has been convicted twice before for the same charges.
Complaints on the up
“Child pornography is quite common in Uruguay. Complaints last year quadrupled from an average of 120 complaints in 2013 to 450 in 2014,” said Winston Rodriguez, head of the cyber crime department of the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime.
More than 500 cases of child pornography were recorded from January to November this year, while 19 people were prosecuted last year.
Uruguay, with 20 other countries, is part of the “Without Borders” initiative, the biggest international operation that cracks down on pedophile rings around the world.
According to the Interior Ministry, four people were arrested recently from simultaneous raids in Montevideo, Colonia, and Lavalleja. A total of 320,000 photos and 45,000 videos were obtained in the detainees’ houses. The culprits are aged 32, 41, 43, and 61-years-old. They were convicted on Friday.
More than 200 raids were executed in 47 cities in the Americas and Spain.
