In North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse, a serious case of alleged child abuse has become known. Investigators have arrested four men who allegedly committed at least six children. The alleged victims were between less than a year and ten years old according to police. They are children or stepchildren of the suspects.
Investigations came into play after officials searched the home of a 42-year-old in Bergisch Gladbach. He is suspected of abusing children in his home, having filmed and distributed the deeds. The Cologne public prosecutor's office determined.
Hundreds of thousands of images and videos were found that documented child abuse - around three terabytes of data. In the evaluation of the material, the investigators found according to their own information to three other suspects who are also accused of possession and dissemination of child pornography and severe sexual abuse of children:
- A 26-year-old Bundeswehr soldier from the vicinity of Wiesbaden, the procedure runs at the prosecutor Kassel
- A 38-year-old from Niedernhausen, against the prosecutor Wiesbaden determined
- A 33-year-old man from the Mettmann district; the Düsseldorf public prosecutor's office leads the procedure
The men are said to have exchanged pictures according to previous findings on Internet chats. Whether they knew each other personally was still unclear, said Cologne's Attorney General Ulrich Bremer.
"They see me stunned and dismayed," said police chief Uwe Jacob. The evaluation of the material will take longer time. So far only a fraction of the secured data carrier was sighted.
The Cologne police has turned off 20 officials who are to evaluate, among other things, the huge amounts of data in order to identify potential other perpetrators and victims. So far there are no indications.
