Police officers of the Criminal Police Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republika Srpska (MUPRS), in cooperation with members of the Bijeljina Police Directorate and police officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Tuzla Canton, and under the supervision of the Bijeljina District Public Prosecutor’s Office, are implementing the international operation “Karika” aimed at detecting and proving criminal offenses in the field of protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation on the Internet.
Six persons were arrested today in the operation – B.A. and P.D. from Bijeljina, D.T. from Lopare, D.N. from Ugljevik, E.M. from Gradačac and B.V. from Serbia, for whom there are grounds for suspicion that in the past period they have committed the criminal offenses of “Using a computer network or communication by other technical means to commit criminal offenses of sexual abuse or exploitation” and “Using children for pornography” and “Introducing children to pornography”.
Pursuant to the orders of the competent courts, searches were carried out at seven locations of residential buildings, vehicles and movable property in the areas of Bijeljina, Ugljevik, Lopare and Gradačac, which were found to be used by persons linked to the commission of the above-mentioned criminal offences. During the searches, the means of committing the criminal offence were found and seized, namely: computers, tablets, mobile phones, memory cards and other devices for storing digital data, as well as other objects that can be linked to the commission of the criminal offence.
The aforementioned criminal offences were committed in such a way that the suspects had been communicating with children aged 13 and 14 years through social networks and communication applications in the past period of time, then inciting the children to create child pornography, that is, they asked the children to take photos of themselves without clothes, describing in detail how to take photos of intimate parts of the body.
The arrested persons had also introduced children to pornography, sending them photographic and video material of pornographic content. Through communication, using applications, they tried to arrange meetings with children for the purpose of having sexual intercourse.
In addition to the above, the suspects used social networks and communication applications to access groups in which child pornography content was shared. The age of the children whose material was shared ranged from 3 to 14 years.
Some individuals are also suspected of having created a storage space on remote infrastructures for storing digital data that was under their control, after which they repeatedly stored child pornography content in the aforementioned storage spaces.
After the criminal investigation, the persons will be handed over to the competent prosecutor’s office with a report on the committed criminal offenses, the RS Ministry of Internal Affairs announced.
