150,000 child abuse images seized in four of 31 homes raided

Up to four people targeted in Garda raids of 31 homes have voluntarily admitted to possessing more than 150,000 child abuse images, the Irish Examiner understands. In one case, there are believed to be 70,000 images on the person’s digital devices.

Senior gardaí said yesterday that arrests are “imminent” in the operation, codenamed Ketch, which ran over the last four days in 12 garda divisions in Leinster and Munster. The divisions are Dublin, Louth, Meath, Westmeath, Wicklow, Laois, Kildare, Carlow/ Kilkenny, Kerry, Waterford, Limerick and Wexford.

It is thought that none of the suspects are people with a public profile or are the likes of judges or gardaí.

It is thought three or four individuals who had their homes searched have admitted to possessing child pornography, with more than 150,000 images between them. Sources said this indicates the quantity of material that could be contained in the remaining 27 cases.

Specialist gardaí will liaise with Interpol to identify the children in the imagery.

Sources said that if any Irish children are thought to have been abused, or if any of the suspects have children, that further action will be taken, including informing the Family and Child Agency Tusla.

Detective Superintendent Declan Daly, who led the operation, said it was a “stark warning” to those who possess or distribute child exploitation imagery that “your homes will be searched, your sexual interest in children will be exposed” and that they faced criminal prosecution.

Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll said the actions of cybervigilantes who entrap online predators was “fraught with danger”, saying their behaviour could endanger the successful prosecution of suspects and to leave the work to police.

The raids come a week after Dubliner Matthew Horan was jailed for more than seven years after using social media and other web platforms, including anonymous messaging services, to coerce girls as young as nine into sending him explicit images. The 26-year-old also had thousands of child abuse images on his computers.

Operation Ketch began last Friday and ran until Monday and stemmed from information received from the Online Child Exploitation Unit of the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the US, the National Child Exploitation Co-ordination Centre in Canada and police agencies worldwide.

Mr O’Driscoll, head of Special Crime Operations, said this was one of four ‘enhanced’ operations being conducted this year, on top of ongoing investigations.

He said the National Protective Services Bureau, and its sub sections, the Online Child Exploitation Unit and the National Child Protection Unit, were involved.

They were assisted by local gardaí and the digital devices seized — laptops, desktops, smartphones and storage devices — are being analysed by the Garda Cybercrime Bureau and, if necessary, by Europol.

Ass Comm O’Driscoll said problems of delays in examining devices, highlighted again in recent court cases, were a “thing of the past” and that extra resources were effectively dealing with the backlog.

He said Courts Service figures showed that prosecutions for child pornography increased from 22 cases in 2015 to 119 cases in 2016.

He said arrests would begin in a matter of “hours”, with others in the coming days or weeks, based on a risk assessment of the suspect.

Det Supt Daly said the evidence-gathering phase of the operation was now complete and the task now was the examination of the devices and arrest of suspects.

He said as well as identifying these individuals gardai wanted to reassure the public that this area was of “critical importance”.

He said that “at the moment” they did not think any of the children were Irish but that they were still examining the images.

He said that, generally, the profile of suspects was not someone “in a basement or dark room”, but a professional, with a knowledge of IT, aged 25-50 and male.

The timing of the operation coincides with Safer Internet Day today.