Malta police aids Europol to identify four child sexual abuse victims

The Malta Police Force's cybercrime unit has participated in an operation with Europol's European cybercrime centre to identify victims of child sexual abuse and have tentatively confirmed the identity of four victims.

Europol's Victim Identification Taskforce (VIDTF) employed 30 law enforcement experts from 21 countries, including Malta, to go through millions of images and video files of victims, some as young as a few days old. 

Intelligence analysts were able to identify four possible victims with the help of participating specialists from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States, Europol and INTERPOL.

In a statement on Friday, the Malta Police Force said that the operation lasted two weeks and was hosted at the VIDTF headquarters from 14 to 25 October 2019.

Distressing photographs of children's clothes and miscellaneous items were uploaded on Europol's website to rope in the general public in the hopes that further sex abuse victims are located.

More than 48 million images and video files were available in Europol’s database for the VIDTF operation. Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre is now providing support to the EU Member States involved to help safeguard the four children concerned.