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A few days before a planned redistribution of tasks between the federal and state police, the police union (GdP) is sounding the alarm: The move could result in tens of thousands of suspected cases of child pornography no longer being adequately investigated.
Specifically, it is about more than 60,000 cases nationwide that are reported to the German authorities by the US Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) because the perpetrators from Germany used American servers, the GdP said.
From March 1, the State Criminal Police Office will be responsible for examining this information - so far the Federal Criminal Police Office has taken on the task.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, neither the state criminal investigation department nor the local police authorities are prepared for the expected sharp increase in suspected cases, the union now says.
The number of investigators and the technical equipment are inadequate.
The hitherto made increase in staff in this area is therefore not sufficient.
According to the GdP, perpetrators could therefore remain unpunished.
"We need more IT experts and skilled workers to support the police officers in evaluating the ever-increasing amounts of data," said GdP Deputy Head of State Michael Maatz.
"The additional posts must be made available now and not in a few months, when the wave of abuse cases has hit the police."
With the abuse cases of Lügde, Bergisch Gladbach and Münster, three major crime complexes had been uncovered in North Rhine-Westphalia since 2019.
It is about sexual violence against a large number of children and about large networks of suspects.
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