Madrid: Twenty-eight people have been arrested as part of an international operation against the child pornography industry, largely developed in Spain, police officials said.
The operation was the second largest of the year in the number of arrests made for child porn, after the so-called "KOBEN" in February, when 57 people were taken into custody and another 24 were accused.
Police authorities said here at a press conference that four of those under arrest are also charged with the sexual abuse of minors, whom they filmed in the act of being violated. A fifth person is also being investigated for that crime.
A source also said that two of those implicated are British and were arrested in the eastern Spanish city of Alicante.
According to the announcement, some of the detainees engaged in activities that permitted them constant contact with children, such as camp organizers, religion instructors and teachers.
The porn ring, from which 19 children have now been rescued, was involved in the sale of videos featuring sexual abuse sequences, for which little boys were filmed in Ukraine, Romania and Germany.
Police said that this network has operated since 2004 from the Canadian city of Toronto, using three different web sites to advertise and sell the DVDs with sexual abuse images.
The child-porn ring took in $1.6 million in revenue annually, as purchase orders poured in from 94 countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
In the operation, rolled out in 14 Spanish provinces, police seized 20 computers and a variety of online material.
IANS
