Action against child pornography: 13 arrested, materials with severe scenes of sexual violence found

• It is still being established whether Bulgarian children are also affected

A civil aviation pilot from a popular low-cost airline, IT specialists, a motorcar driver, a general worker, a locksmith, a sports shop owner, an auto mechanic, an electrician, and a real estate appraiser are among those arrested in a large-scale operation against the distribution of child pornography in our country. A total of 13 people have been detained. Most are between the ages of 30 and 40, but there are also those in their 60s. Phones, flash drives and other magnetic media were confiscated.

“About 50% of the detainees are family people with children. Most are not socially weak, they have good financial opportunities,” said Borislav Sarafov, head of the National Investigation Service, at a briefing. According to him, it is not easy to catch the people who distribute child pornography, as certain knowledge and skills are required. It is necessary to download specialized software, which is capable of downloading and distributing pornographic materials, on a device – phone or computer. “During the searches, videos and photos with brutal scenes of sexual abuse with children from the former Soviet republics or from the Middle East – Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, etc. were found. We are checking whether children from Bulgaria were also used. I hope our fears will not turn out to be true,” said Sarafov.

Charges are likely to be filed later today. “I hope that the evidence we collected will be enough for the supervising prosecutors to bring charges within the day against all 13 people we detained,” he added. Borislav Sarafov stressed that the distribution of pornographic materials on the Internet is not at all harmless. The psycho-profile of these individuals shows that they could easily leave the virtual world and prey on children in real life. “The children in the seized materials are apparently aged between 2 and 10 years old. I could neither show these shots nor say anything more about them, because the one who sees them will have to wash his eyes several times,” explained Sarafov.

Prosecutor General Siika Mileva’s spokesperson said that in one of the identified cases, a Dutch citizen was found to have distributed a video in which a boy with an apparent age of 10 to 12 performs sexual acts with a girl with an apparent age of 6 to 8. In another case, a 37-year-old man was found to be distributing pornographic material showing an elderly man sexually abusing a little girl. The third case is related to a 26-year-old man from Sofia, who distributed hundreds of photos and videos of sexual abuse of children from 1 month to 2 years old.

It also became clear that five people were detained in Sofia and eight in the rest of the country. They are disclosed by our services, ie. the services of foreign anti-pornography agencies were not used. It is currently being checked whether one of the children in the photos is not a Bulgarian citizen. It was also established that two of the detained persons were distributing pornographic materials in the immediate vicinity of a Home for children deprived of parental care.

Siika Mileva added that by order of Ivan Geshev, 12 pre-trial proceedings have already been initiated for the distribution of pornographic materials. They are assigned to investigators from the National Investigation Service. She admitted that our legislation in this regard is outdated. Currently, the punishment for such acts is up to 6 years of imprisonment. “Note that the punishment for persons who create and distribute child pornography – in our case, most are 4-5 years old and even babies – is imprisonment for up to 6 years and a fine of up to BGN 8,000,” Siika Mileva said. From her words, it became clear that quite often these sentences are suspended and these people re-enter society.