Use the profile of a child criminal to unmask others. This is the idea that the Swiss police had after arresting one of them a decade ago. Thanks to the operation "Ninja Turtle", then launched secretly, more than 2,200 paedocriminals have been discovered in the world in recent years, revealed Tuesday the Swiss authorities.
The case dates back to 2012 when Swiss police received information that a person domiciled in the canton of Aargau was disseminating "illegal pornographic material" under the pseudonym "Ninja Turtle" through the GigaTribe platform, which allows data to be exchanged anonymously.
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An investigation then made it possible to arrest, in the same year, "Ninja Turtle", behind which was hiding a 62-year-old German, convicted in 2015, said the cantonal police of Aargau in a statement. That's when Swiss officials came up with the idea of using his profile to get their hands on other paedocriminals.
Arrests around the world
"The secret operation carried out on the Internet for several years has been successful," the Aargau police said on Tuesday. Arrests were made in Switzerland but also elsewhere in the world, including Croatia, Brazil, France, Peru, Romania and Spain, according to the statement.
Among the child criminals unmasked, some people used child pornography and others abused children themselves.
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