Bavarian police in mass raid on child pornographers

Police in the southern German state of Bavaria raided 49 premises on Wednesday in connection with the production of child pornography.

Bavarian Justice Minister Georg Eisenreich described the raids, in which 51 suspects were identified as “the largest coordinated search operation related to child pornography’’ in the state.

The raids follow a series of raids on Monday in which one of the world’s largest child pornography internet platforms was targeted.

The 51 suspects in the latest raids are accused of possessing and disseminating images of child sexual abuse and of themselves perpetrating abuse through `grooming’ children over the internet with the aim of abusing them.

The police confiscated smartphones, computers and data storage devices. Apart from the 49 premises raided in Bavaria, premises in Stuttgart and Hanover were also searched.

In Monday’s operation, the darknet platform that was shut down was thought to have had more than 400,000 members and was internationally oriented.