The massive distribution of child pornography via chat apps even shocks the police

The Public Prosecution Service will remember this investigation for a long time, the public prosecutor of the National Public Prosecution Service said in early December in the Rotterdam court. The Public Prosecutor’s Office fights nationally and internationally organized and serious crime, including terrorism, drug trafficking and child pornography. 57-year-old Jan W. from Zoetermeer was charged with distributing images of violent sexual child abuse via Telegram. The officer called the seriousness of the offenses unprecedented: “The crying and screaming of the children is intense. The comments from suspects and co-perpetrators on the images are cruel. Ruthless. So much bizarre misery leaves no one cold. Heartbreaking.”

Jan W. was a member of forty to fifty Telegram groups with extreme content, some of which had as many as 1,500 members. Child and animal pornography was shared in more than half of the groups. Others contain material on necrophilia, Nazism and extreme violence.

Jan W. had founded and managed several groups himself. Therefore, he was not only part of a criminal organization, but also had a leading role. For the first time, a Telegram group for child pornography was classified as a criminal network by a Dutch court, which was previously only done with child pornography platforms on the so-called darkweb. That part of the internet is not accessible via regular search engines. Users usually remain anonymous there.

The young age of the abused children and the very serious violence play an important role in aggravating the sentence.

The Public Prosecution Service signals that child pornography is expanding darkweb to encrypted chat apps such as Telegram and Signal, a trend that has increased significantly in the past year as more and more applications use encrypted technology. Linda van den Oever, prosecutor for child pornography and child sex tourism at the National Public Prosecution Service, emphasizes the importance of Jan W.’s case as a precedent. Where before especially darkwebusers were prosecuted for downloading, distributing or making accessible child pornography and participating in a criminal organization, this is now also happening to users of chat apps.

This Tuesday, a 37-year-old man from Bodegraven appeared in court on suspicion of sharing child pornography via the encrypted chat app TeleGuard and of participating in a criminal organization that would produce and distribute the pornography. The Combating Child Pornography and Child Sex Tourism Team (TBKK) tracked down the man last summer. The suspect is said to have shared images of sexual abuse of (very) young children in various groups. In court it became clear that the man is also suspected of sexual abuse of minors.

International connection

According to the Public Prosecution Service, chat groups on Telegram function in a similar way to one darkwebforum and child pornography is often distributed in an internationally organized context. Members work together to collect and share images and to work as anonymously as possible to stay out of the hands of the police and the judiciary.

The extreme violence and the very young age of the children in Jan W.’s case seemed exceptional, but Van den Oever points out that Telegram groups contain not only more, but also more violent material than the darkweb. “During this case, detectives said that the material was so intense that they had to put it away for a while.”

Persons who download or distribute child pornography and work in direct contact with children are considered particularly high-risk

In October 2023, the TBKK received a notification from the Australian authorities. They had indications that a Dutch man had distributed extremely violent images of abuse of a baby via Telegram, which were allegedly recently produced. Child pornography investigators around the world delved into the case. The perpetrator in the video was identified and arrested in the United States. The baby was brought to safety. “The man who distributed this material is sitting before you today,” the officer told the court about Jan W., who was identified and arrested by the Dutch police.

“The young age of the abused children and the very serious violence play an important aggravating role in the amount of the sentence,” the court stated in its judgment. Jan W. was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and TBS with conditions – a lower sentence than the required four years, because the court considered W. to be less responsible due to, among other things, a pedophilic disorder and personality disorder with narcissistic traits.

A veteran child pornography detective said he has been doing this work for 11 years, but had rarely come across so many images of children under the age of one.

Telegram group with 1,500 members

Accessible and user-friendly platforms make it easier to distribute criminal material, says Van den Oever. Telegram, for example, is much faster and more efficient than it darkwebwhich puts privacy ahead of speed. Via Telegram can also be better than via it darkweb large files are distributed en masse.

It is difficult to track down Telegram users. When detectives discovered a Telegram group with 1,500 members in Jan W.’s case, they could not simply identify everyone involved. This requires cooperation from the service provider and Telegram does not always cooperate with investigative authorities. A European law requiring internet companies to report child abuse material has been delayed for two years due to divisions in Brussels over privacy.

The Public Prosecution Service cannot reveal how Jan W. was traced, because that information could complicate the investigation of others. Van den Oever does confirm that there has been no contact with Telegram in this case.

Last September, Telegram changed its privacy policy. This happened a month after French-Russian founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France on suspicion of facilitating criminal activities, including distributing child pornography. From now on, the platform will share IP addresses and telephone numbers if they are requested via a court order.

“We welcome the fact that Telegram has indicated that it wants to provide data,” says Van den Oever, who confirms that Telegram has responded to claims. “We are now seeing a shift, because when criminals hear that Telegram will cooperate with the authorities, they go to other apps. In that sense there is a waterbed effect.”

Warning calls

In the meantime, reports continue to flow in at the TBKK in Zoetermeer, approximately seventy thousand annually. “We share the public prosecutor’s experience that more child pornography material can be found on chat apps than on darkweb“, says detective Annemiek van Noord of the TBKK.

At the office in Zoetermeer, Van Noord explains that all reports of child pornography with a suspected Dutch link – such as an IP address or telephone number – are received by the intake department. Her colleagues then first check whether the material has already been reported. With new images all alarm bells immediately go off. “There is then a real chance that it is an active abuse situation. We will then do everything we can to identify the victim.” The main goal of the TBKK is to help victims and end abuse.

Of the tens of thousands of reports each year, the police can only investigate a small part. This results in six hundred interventions per year, according to the Public Prosecution Service. These interventions are targeted actions, such as warning calls at home or a criminal case against a suspect. “That is the maximum that can be achieved with our capacity, because in addition to quantity, the complexity of things is also increasing,” says Van den Oever. This is because criminals are increasingly using advanced technologies such as encrypted communications and the dark web, which makes detection more difficult.

The focus is therefore on the most serious crimes involving child pornography. Abuse cases in which the perpetrator himself is directly involved are given priority. This also includes abuse of children elsewhere in the world via live streams. Priority is then given to networks and key players that enable large-scale distribution of child pornography. In addition, the TBKK analyzes the reports for specific signals. “For example, if e-mail addresses can be linked to a primary school,” Van Noord explains. Persons who download or distribute child pornography and work in direct contact with children – for example scout leaders – are considered particularly high-risk.

Puzzle pieces

The TBKK takes on the toughest cases. Dozens per year, according to Van den Oever. Van Noord emphasizes that international cooperation is essential for many matters. “The internet knows no borders,” she says, such as in the case of Jan W. “A Dutch person shares material that was very recently made in America and that ends up in Australia through him. We have to get all those pieces of the puzzle together.”

Van Noord calls Europol and Interpol crucial. “Europol is really the spider in the web for sharing information between police services. Interpol is also important, for example by collecting material and supporting our research. These organizations have specialists and technical experts who work specifically on this theme.”

Van Noord says about the reports: “Unfortunately, it happens too often that a simple report leads to a much bigger story. For example, we knew with Jan W. that he had not filmed himself, but that it was new material. When we raided and confiscated everything, the scale of the case became clear. You only discover such things when you walk in.”

The young age of the abused children and the very serious violence play an important role in aggravating the sentence.

However, the TBKK cannot pick up everything. “We also receive many reports that have a low priority, where we estimate that a child is not immediately in danger.” says Van Noord. These are often the cases of downloaders and distributors who are considered less risky. “We can identify many more people than we can even track down and prosecute. We store the information about the cases that remain unused in the police systems,” says Van den Oever.

“We think it is important to do something in these types of cases,” says Van Noord. That is why the TBKK organized a national week of action last November, during which officers visited 150 people who had child pornography in their possession to warn them to stop downloading child pornography. The risk for these people has been estimated as low, for example because they are not repeat offenders or do not work with children. The message was that those who possess, download or distribute child pornographic material must stop doing so or they will be arrested.

“Even if you just watch without making material yourself, you are punishable and you maintain the system,” says Van Noord. And she emphasizes the consequences: “The worst thing is that the material keeps going around, so the victim becomes a victim again and again.”

Stop it Now is for anyone who is concerned about sexual feelings and/or behavior towards minors. Telephone (anonymous): 0800 2666436. Chat via stopitnow.nl

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