US embassy cable - 05MADRID1036

UNCLAS MADRID 001036 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, PREL, SP 
SUBJECT: SPANISH POLICE COORDINATE MASSIVE INTERNATIONAL 
PEDOPHILIA RAID 
 
 
1.  The Spanish Civil Guard reported March 16 that police 
officers from 12 European and Latin American countries were 
arresting 500 people on charges of distributing child 
pornography on a Spanish-language Internet chat site.  It is 
unclear whether the location of the server has been 
identified.  Spanish police arrested 19 people in 13 
provinces on March 16.  Arrests were also being made in 
France, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Chile, Argentina, 
Panama, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and 
Uruguay.  Police confiscated about 20,000 files containing 
videos, photographs, and MP3 files containing child 
pornography. 
 
2.  "Operation Cerberus" began January 19 when an Internet 
user in the northwestern Spanish village of Caldas de Rei in 
Pontevedra province filed a complaint after seeing hard-core 
child pornography on an Internet chat site.  According to a 
Civil Guard spokesman, "The person clicked three times on an 
Internet chat page and went into a chat room that displayed 
very explicit images of child pornography."  After confirming 
the tip, the Civil Guard began monitoring the site for 
additional illegal material and began tracing its sources. 
After watching the site for 15 days, the police identified 
more than 900 computers throughout the world that had 
downloaded images.  About 400 of the computers were located 
in Internet cafes.  The Civil Guard then contacted Eurojust, 
the EU body established in 2002 to combat serious 
cross-border crime, and Ibered, the Latin American 
organization that coordinates cross-border crime. 
 
3.  According to Spanish law, owners of pornographic material 
depicting children can be imprisoned for three months to a 
year.  If the material is distributed, the sentences are 
increased to between one year and four years.  If the 
children in the images are less than 13 years old, 
distribution penalties can range from four to eight years. 
 
4.  The nineteen Spanish arrests took place in Madrid, 
Alicante, Valencia, Salamanca, Zamora, Burgos, Vizcaya, 
Lleida, Barcelona, Asturias, Tenerife, Majorca, and 
Pontevedra.  Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso told the 
press that the case is still open and there could be further 
arrests. 
MANZANARES