Officers of the National Police said that the 24 produced pornographic films for online distribution that depicted children under the age of 16.
The investigation began during the initial outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, when police received a notable spike in complaints from “users who were alerted about pedophile material on the net and individuals who tried to contact minors.”
Investigators did not comment further on the nature of these complaints or how users became aware that minors were being contacted for grooming purposes.
Police raided 25 homes as part of the operation, during which they collected more than 100 mobile phones, hard drives, computers, tablets, flash drives, memory cards, and DVDs.
Authorities said that the evidence they recovered depicted pornographic content “starring minors of extreme hardness, in which sexual activities of a sadistic nature with minors were shown.”
One of the 24 suspects in particular, allegedly established contact with a minor, who was younger than 16-years-old, via instant messaging for the purposes of recording the child engaged in sexually explicit actions on video.
Police said that these recordings were made covertly without the child’s knowledge and that this individual was also allegedly in charge of distributing large amounts of pedophile content to others in the ring.
In exchange for performing on these video calls, investigators allege that the suspect bought train tickets for the minor.
Another individual tied to the group, who was located in Algeciras, was found to be in possession of more than 1,300 files, which police say unmistakably depicted children in sexually exploitative circumstances.
Authorities did not immediately respond to comment on how the investigation will proceed from here, or if they believe the 24 encompass the entirety of the pedophile ring.