Misuse case in Bergisch Gladbach: LKA uses new "evaluators"

In the Abuse case of Bergisch Gladbach, the North Rhine-Westphalian State Criminal Police Office (LKA) also uses new staff to inspect the child pornography material. These are not policemen, they were hired as "evaluators" a few weeks ago. This confirmed a LKA spokesman for the news agency dpa.

In the spring, the LKA searched for a total of 24 external employees, of whom 14 were to be used specifically for the screening of child pornography material. In the job description it said: "Due to the topic to be dealt with a contact with child pornographic representations is given every working day." The tasks include, among other things, "views and independent classification of images and videos in relevant categories by using different, special evaluation software".

The current abuse case, which began in Bergisch Gladbach near Cologne, was "virtually the test" for the new employees, the LKA spokesman. Whether all 14 "evaluators" have already been found and used, he did not say. During the call for tenders, the LKA said: "These are not policemen, they are people we take from the open labor market and hire as wage-earners."

Chat groups with up to 1800 members

The seized media in the current case are, according to the competent police Cologne read centrally at the LKA. "After automated searches, the data is viewed, evaluated and made available on a secure server for the investigating authorities," said the Cologne police.

In this case, eight suspects have been arrested so far. The starting point for the extensive investigation was large amounts of data, which were found at the end of October when searching an apartment. Pictures on the smartphone of the resident - a family man - show loud police serious sexual abuse. By evaluating his cell phone, the investigators were first five other suspects on the track.

On Friday, a seventh man was arrested. He was remanded like the other suspects. On Monday it was announced that an eighth man had been arrested at the weekend. He too is now in custody.

The entire dimension of the case, according to the investigators is not yet estimate. So far unknown perpetrators could therefore continue to be active. It is expected that the investigations would be extended to other federal states and possibly to foreign countries. According to Cologne police, the suspects have exchanged photos of the abuse in chat groups with up to 1,800 members. More than 250 investigators work according to police at the Enlightenment.