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Norwegian police said on Wednesday that 28 men across seven countries had been arrested in an operation targeting buyers of material depicting sexual abuse of children.
Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service (Kripos) said the men had used the cryptocurrency Monero to pay for access to several forums on the dark web.
“We have worked closely with six countries to coordinate the arrests of the identified users who paid with cryptocurrency to gain access to the forums,” police prosecutor Terje Nedrebo Michelsen said in a statement.
The operation had been carried out in early June and the men, aged between 22-54, had been arrested in Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany, Kripos said.
More arrests were expected, potentially in additional countries, the agency said, noting that there were “many suspects.”
Kripos said that in 2025 it had developed a method to trace the use of the cryptocurrency in specific cases.
In a separate statement, Europol said that one of the arrested “was extensively using artificial intelligence in order to generate illegal material,” while “some of the victims were part of another suspect’s immediate family.”
Three children had been “safeguarded” as a result of the operation, it added.
The operation had also led “to the seizure of more than 460 items, including electronic devices, crypto wallets, drugs and large quantities of doping substances,” Europol said.
Additional sources • AFP