Three victims of child sexual abuse have been tentatively identified by Europol’s Victim Identification Taskforce.
One victim is in Europe, one is in the United States, and one is in Russia. Law enforcement in each region are working to finish identifying the victims.
The identifications were a result of Europol’s sixth Victim Identification Taskforce, which took place from 13-24 May at Europol headquarters at The Hague. It brought together 34 victim identification experts from 24 countries and 29 agencies.
Europol functions as the European Union's law enforcement agency and assists EU member states combatting terrorism, cybercrime and other forms of organized crime.
Taskforce participants uploaded 466 new datasets, which include images and video files, to the International Child Sexual Exploitation Database and added more than 280 additions to existing datasets, all of which Europol says increases the chances of victims being identified.
“The combined efforts of this team of investigators can make a huge difference to the lives of children through providing information to law enforcement colleagues in specific countries enabling them to start investigations and ultimately rescue the children from abuse,” Steven Wilson, head of the European Cybercrime Center at Europol, said in a press release.
A separate investigation is attempting to identify a European victim and an offender.
Sam Nelson
The Brussels Times
