Fight against crime
Online child sexual abuse – a search for the needle in the digital haystack
In 2023, investigators from the Sexual Offences and Online Child Sexual Abuse Unit of Criminal Intelligence Service Austria successfully identified 464 suspects and 35 victims in cooperation with the Provincial CIDs. Two sniffer dogs assisted the police officers in detecting hidden digital storage devices.
Like in many other areas of life, digitalisation has had an impact on the abuse of children. The production, procurement and availability of abuse material has changed noticeably, with offenders producing and putting the abuse material online within a very short period of time. As a result, a flood of data is making it increasingly difficult for authorities around the world to combat this type of crime. In a never-ending cycle, investigators from the Sexual Offences and Online Child Sexual Abuse Unit of Criminal Intelligence Service Austria sift through data in an effort to identify offenders and victims.
According to Franz Ruf, Director General for Public Security, targeted action by criminal investigators and close cooperation with international law enforcement authorities ensure that digital traces left by offenders are followed systematically even in a supposedly anonymous, virtual space. "We are combating these developments and all forms of online child sexual abuse through operational and organisational measures, such as the establishment of CID assistance services and the training of digital storage detection dogs," explained Franz Ruf.
New tool provides a better overview
Due to the increasing amount of data and images already in circulation which continue to be shared, it is becoming more and more difficult to keep track of existing material. Often, several authorities report the same files on different days, which results in more administrative work regarding the categorisation of data. The growing number of hits reported by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) (15,882 in 2023) demonstrates this issue clearly.
The NCMEC tool, which was adopted by Austria’s Council of Ministers in 2023 and will be fully rolled out at the end of September 2024, flags files that have already been categorised as abuse material and thereby helps to establish whether the material depicts already known or new cases of abuse. Based on this information, specialist prioritise these new cases. The tool pre-sorts the material and spares case officers the necessity of sifting through millions of images, substantially improving their efficiency. Furthermore, it becomes immediately apparent whether or not any police intervention is required.
464 suspects and 35 victims identified
In 2023, investigators from Criminal Intelligence Service Austria and the provincial CIDs identified 464 suspects in total. Investigations in these cases are often extremely lengthy and complex. One of the investigators had to go through around one million files that were solely related to one case, for instance. The suspects were accused of child sexual abuse, possessing child sexual abuse material, and even live streaming child sexual abuse.
Thanks to the outstanding work of the investigators, 35 victims were identified in Austria and abroad and subsequently protected from further abuse.
Behind every image of child abuse is a victim of sexual violence. According to Andreas Holzer, Director of Criminal Intelligence Service Austria, the volumes of data to be examined are constantly increasing, also due to easier access to the internet. Nevertheless, the investigators of Criminal Intelligence Service Austria and the provincial CIDs are committed to fighting this form of crime every day.
International cooperation – Operational sprint at Europol
As this type of crime poses a challenge for investigators all around the world, international cooperation is essential in the fight against child abuse. New developments in this field require law enforcement authorities to adapt and adopt new approaches.
During an operational sprint at Europol involving representatives from ten countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom and United States), 32 investigators followed leads generated from investigations of United States Homeland Security Investigations (US HSI) into criminal networks sexually exploiting children in the Philippines.
The investigators analysed tens of thousands of child sexual exploitation images and videos, along with over ten million lines of online messages exchanged between approximately 12,000 individual criminal customer accounts and 100 seller accounts.
The operational sprint resulted in the creation of information packages, which led national authorities of 24 countries to 197 buyers of live distant child abuse. The investigators also developed investigative leads with links to Austria, which are now being analysed by Austrian law enforcement authorities.
New approach: deploying sniffer dogs
It is not only the small size of data storage devices and the fact that they can be easily hidden which makes them extremely difficult to detect in house searches. Often, USB flash drives are "disguised" as small everyday items such as lighters, pens and lipsticks, and can easily be overlooked.
In a trial operation, digital storage detection dogs from the Herzogau-Waldmünchen Central Police Dog Training Centre in Bavaria assisted officers of Criminal Intelligence Service Austria during a search of premises. With their help, the police recovered hard drives that were buried in the garden.
Following this success, the Sexual Offences and Online Child Sexual Abuse Unit had two digital storage detection dogs trained in cooperation with the Herzogau-Waldmünchen Central Police Dog Training Centre of the Bavarian police, which now assist police services throughout Austria. The sniffer dogs are not only deployed to support investigations into online child sexual abuse, but to any investigation where the detection of data storage devices is key to uncovering crucial evidence, such as investigations into economic or cybercrime offences.
Extensive investigation led to 31-year-old offender
In 2023, INTERPOL Wiesbaden and the Australian Victim Identification Group of the Queensland Police Service forwarded information to Criminal Intelligence Service Austria about a TOR user who repeatedly posted pictures of underage girls with sexual comments and child sexual abuse material. Following in-depth investigations over the course of a year, officers of Criminal Intelligence Service Austria identified, located and arrested one offender and identified three previously unknown underage victims in the offender's extended family. Furthermore, six other minors were identified whose images the offender distributed on the darknet. As a result, the accused was sentenced to three years of imprisonment.
No case will ever be forgotten.
In 2020, a girl in Vienna filed a complaint against an unidentified Instagram user for alleged online child sexual abuse. The offender had convinced the then-14-year-old victim to produce pornographic material and subsequently coerced her into sending him images several times by threatening her to share the photographs and videos she had already sent him with her mother and friends via Instagram and Snapchat.
Back then, the investigation was conducted by the Vienna Provincial CID. At the time, it was not possible to identify the offender. New leads provided by the Victim Identification Task Force at Europol allowed the investigation to resume in 2024, which led to the successful identification of the offender. On 19 May 2023, the offender was arrested in a hotel in Colorado, USA, and has been detained ever since. So far, the US authorities have succeeded in identifying 75 victims. And thanks to investigations conducted by Criminal Intelligence Service Austria, another victim has been added to this list.