It is a big dragnet of the judicial police, currently under the threat of a very controversial reform. Forty-eight people, including elected officials and National Education officials, suspected of massive consultation of child pornography content, were arrested between Tuesday November 15 and Wednesday November 16 across France. The investigators mentioned content sometimes “particularly violent” and try to find out if among the accused, some were able to take action.
Those arrested are all men, aged 26 to 79. France Inter, which cites police sources, reveals that local elected officials, national education officials, workers in associations (especially workers in child welfare and foster families), are among those arrested.
This national operation, coordinated by the Central Office for the Suppression of Violence against Persons (OCRRVP) and Europol following a report from the United States, led to the arrest of a mayor of a town in Côte-d’ Gold, whose identity is still unknown, according to France Bleu. The same site, in its Pays d’Auvergne edition, reports two individuals, aged around sixty and forty, arrested in Puy-de-Dôme.
Up to 5 years in prison
Other men were arrested in Locmaria-Plouzané, in Finistère and in Bergerac, in Dordogne, again according to France Inter. The person arrested in Bergerac, aged 46, was released Wednesday, November 16 after being placed in police custody, pending the results of a psychiatric expertise. He kept child pornography images on an external hard drive and an SD card, downloaded from porn sites.
In addition to elected officials or executives of the National Education, “everyman”, workers or retirees were among those incriminated. France Inter, again citing its police sources, evokes the case of certain “collectors”, who keep hundreds, sometimes thousands of these contents on their computers, sometimes “violent”…
The investigators, who managed to locate these people thanks to snitches on sites selling child pornography, are trying to find out if some of these men have acted out. If necessary, they will be subject to prosecution for pedocrime.
Among these men, some face up to five years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros.