A month-long secret cyber-surveillance operation by the Kerala Police’s countering child sexual exploitation team resulted in scores of persons, including migrant workers and white-collar professionals, getting booked for allegedly trading, peddling, storing and distributing child sexual abuse material.
Officials said suspects rarely stored the images and videos and deleted them immediately after viewing the content. Some regularly formatted their phones to scrub off incriminating evidence.
The operation code-named P-Hunt_23.2 focussed on those who obsessively downloaded, viewed and traded child sex abuse material (CSAM) on closed online messaging groups.
Officials said many accused were repeat offenders, seemingly addicted to CSAM.
Moreover, police officers suspected a possible child trafficking angle, warranting a detailed inquiry.
The State police formed 449 teams, including cybersecurity experts, under District Police Chiefs to carry out the raids. It resulted in the arrest of 133 persons and the seizure of 212 digital devices, including mobile phones, under section 67 B of the IT Act.
Kerala Police Cyberdome aided the operation. It reportedly used state-of-the-art cyber-surveillance software sourced from Interpol to track the online trafficking of child pornography.
Investigators also used deception, fake personas and social engineering techniques to infiltrate the highly secretive cliques. Using fictitious cyber identities, investigators insinuated themselves into the secret groups.
An official said the police tracked the download and dissemination of digitally watermarked prurient “trojan horse” images of children to the IP addresses of individual offenders.
Investigators said unknown child predators, equipped with mobile phones, appeared to have generated many images and traded them online.
The distribution, viewing, and storing of child pornography entailed a punishment of up to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of ₹10 lakh.
Inspector General of Police P. Prakash (Intelligence) and the nodal officer of Cyberdome spearheaded the operation.
