Investigations by a global EUROPOL task force, including Maltese officers, have identified 18 child victims of sexual abuse and led to the arrest of two offenders.

Nine of the young victims have already been rescued by the authorities, with investigations ongoing to safeguard the others.

Between October 25 and November 5 of this year, experts from 26 countries combed through some 580 sets of images and video files depicting unknown victims of child sexual abuse, some as young as a few days old.

They were supported by Europol specialists and intelligence analysts in the field of combating the sexual exploitation of children.

In addition to the 18 identified children, the likely country of production has been located in 211 instances and intelligence packages sent by Europol to the relevant countries for investigation. 

Officers from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, Ukraine, the US, Europol and INTERPOL took part in this 10th Europol Victim Identification Taskforce

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