Investigators from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BK) and the Styrian State Criminal Police Office (LKA), in close cooperation with the Graz public prosecutor's office, managed to identify a suspect who may have both spread abusive material and incited acts of abuse via video chat. The victims of these acts were traced thanks to the professional work of the police liaison officer in East Asia. In addition to these actions, the suspect is also accused of abusing his own child.

“Child sexual abuse is one of the most brutal forms of violent crime. The package of measures presented a few weeks ago will also expand the scope of investigative powers and give investigators stronger tools," said Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, commenting on the success of the investigation and referring to the current criminal service reform and the first implementation steps in the area of ​​cyber investigations.

General Andreas Holzer, Director of the Federal Criminal Police Office, added: “This case clearly shows that we are taking rigorous action against crime on both a national and international level. No perpetrator should be sure of their supposed anonymity on the Internet.”

Report from USA leads to suspicious Styrian

The investigation area for sexual offenses and child pornography online in the BK received a report from NCMEC (“National Center for Missing & Exploited Children”, USA) in September 2020, according to which an Austrian user had spread child pornography on a social media platform. After the BK was able to assign the data to a 58-year-old from Styria, the further operational investigations were taken over by the LKA Styria. In February 2021, the LKA carried out a search of the accused's house ordered by the Graz public prosecutor's office, where they seized several data storage devices and a mobile phone.

During the forensic evaluation, 97 video files and 15,900 image files with child pornographic content were found. During this evaluation, evidence was found that the 58-year-old may have been guilty of attempted and completed instigation of continued and serious sexual abuse of minors as well as repeated sexual abuse of young people. The investigation also revealed that the 58-year-old was guilty of incest because he was said to have had a sexual relationship with his daughter from 2001 to 2007.

Over the period from 2017 to 2021, the 58-year-old is said to have possessed and redistributed pornographic images of minors. On the other hand, during this period he is said to be using so-called “live streaming” via messenger services or social media platforms to instruct several underage children through various contact persons to perform sexual acts on himself and for other people to perform sexual acts on the children in the Philippines have tempted. For this purpose, money was subsequently transferred to the perpetrators in the Philippines.

Based on these investigative findings, the public prosecutor ordered an arrest and carried it out in May 2021. The police investigation was initially concluded in August 2022 with a final criminal procedural report to the judiciary.

International cooperation: victims saved

At the end of May 2021, a survey request was handed over to the Philippine authorities in cooperation with the BMI liaison officer responsible for the Philippines. Due to the extensive and detailed investigation by the LKA Styria, eight children between the ages of four and eleven were ultimately identified and rescued from the abuse environment by the local authorities. The Philippine law enforcement authorities also investigated several other suspects in this case, including the mother, a grandmother and an aunt of the abuse victims. They are in custody on site.

Sexual abuse in the focus of the new criminal service

“The current criminal service reform focuses on the area of ​​consistent action against the sexual abuse of children. In the future, a special area for online child abuse offenses will be set up in every LKA,” said Karner. In addition, the technical options for efficient investigations will also be expanded accordingly.

The focus of the reform package is the expansion of cyber investigations in the LKA, the creation of a special area for online child abuse crimes, increased personnel at the “Cyber ​​Competence” center and the implementation of special software that enables automatic image comparison. “All of this will enable even more efficient investigations in the future,” Karner is convinced.

Source:

APA OTS

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