A European-wide crackdown on online child pornography has led to the arrest of two people in Italy and over a dozen elsewhere in Europe, police announced on Thursday.
One of the arrests was here in Catania while the other was in Genoa.
Code-named Operation Callidus, the crackdown has involved police searching the homes of 45 suspects in Italy while another 140 people are said to be under investigation elsewhere in Europe.
The pan-European operation is being carried out by police in Sweden, Britain, Denmark, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Malta, Norway and Poland, in collaboration with Europol and Interpol.
"This is the first operation against online child pornography to be coordinated and carried out by police in so many different countries in Europe," observed Catania Assistant Prosecutors Giuseppe Gennaro. The person arrested here was a 50-year-old businessman who was caught by police while online with a website where it was possible to download kiddie porn videos.
Police also found the subject to be in possession of over 100 DVDs which showed sexual abuse against minors and which were catalogued according to the chid's age, from three to 10.
The arrest in Genoa was that of a 37-year-old man who had used his father's business computer to download over 2,000 videos of child pornography.
The police searches in Italy took place in 19 cities and led to the seizure of 40 computers, 5,833 CD videos and 2,616 DVDs. Police said their crackdown should continue for the next two days.
