Slovak police in cooperation with Europol have identified three Slovak customers of child pornography after the Spanish police informed them that one of the suspects was downloading child-pornography files from the Internet, a top police officer said on July 14.
The Office for the Fight Against Organised Crime carried out five house searches on May 29, June 9 and June 11 as part of the Koala international operation against the distribution and possession of child pornography, Police President Ján Packa told reporters. According to him, three foreign nationals with permanent residency in Slovakia were also identified. These were a Dutch national, a Briton who was working as a teacher in Bratislava, and a U.S. national who had worked as a teacher in Košice before being arrested in the United States for kidnapping two children in a shopping centre.
During the raids, the police seized three desktop computers, two laptops, a pocket computer, five USB sticks, seven memory cards, 14 mini DVDs, 90 VHS cassettes, 802 CDs and DVDs, and three other discs.
If convicted, the accused could face between three-eight years in jail. The operation was aimed mainly against large-scale production and distribution activities conducted by an Italian national who traveled the EU filming girls aged between 6-12. He then sold the material for a high profit. Some of the girls were also sexually abused, either by the man himself, or by his acquaintances. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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