Child porn
June 16, 2009
At least 60 people were arrested in connection with the distribution or downloading of child pornography across four Nordic countries, police said Tuesday.
Raids were carried out on 81 homes in Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark as part of an investigation into the proliferation of material depicting sexual abuse against children.
Police arrested 15 people in Norway and a minimum of 15 each in Sweden, Denmark and Finland, Norwegian police spokesman Leiv-Rune Gully told Reuters.
The raids, dubbed Operation Viking, were the result of two weeks of investigations into a file-sharing network called eDonkey.
Danish police said they seized computers and other equipment believed to contain photos and films of sexual assaults against children.
"We have been monitoring the activity on this network (eDonkey) for two weeks, which gave us a good idea of what was going on," John Staale Stamnes, the head of the Norwegian criminal police unit for Internet crime, told AFP.
Norwegian police "took action against the most serious cases. These were not cases of accidental downloads of child pornography," Stamnes said.
The subsequent investigation and processing of the seized material is expected to take at least several weeks, according to Finland's National Bureau of Investigation.
sjt/reuters/AFP
Editor: Susan Houlton