The Kerala Police have launched a covert cyber surveillance and infiltration programme to crack down on child pornography.
Investigators say that an internal analysis recently revealed that online search engine queries related to child pornography have been on the rise in the country.
Moreover, images of children captured furtively on mobile phones were increasingly finding their way to porn websites and Kerala could be a significant contributor. Officers said most of the photos traded on porn sites were of children in water theme parks, schools, beaches, homes, and resorts.
Additional Director General of Police Manoj Abraham, who heads a special team formed in December to prevent sexual abuse of children online, told The Hindu that social engineering was the linchpin of the policing strategy to get tough on the racket. Investigators say that shadowy groups that create disseminate, exchange and even retail child abuse material conduct their business in extreme secrecy. The administrators of such groups operate under fictitious names.
Officers often have to pose as consumers of child porn to expose the identities of the sex offenders. Operating mainly from the Kerala Police Cyberdome facility here, law enforcers use deception as a tool to insinuate themselves into such groups and manipulate suspects into divulging information about themselves and their criminal acts.
Intense scrutiny
The police said instant messaging groups were the platform of choice for bartering prurient videos featuring juveniles. Most of the smut was designed to self erase after a single viewing. Admission to the groups involved several layers of vetting by the secretive administrators and might include levies for members paid via digital currencies such as bitcoin.
Moreover, the police operation also involved close coordination with national and international law enforcement agencies because child pornography rings have transcended State and national borders, given the enormous profits involved.
The Kerala Police are also making a list of porn websites that peddle child sexual abuse content. Law enforcers say they hope to shut down such domains, which are often restricted to paid members or those introduced by peers.
Officers say that an affidavit filed by the Centre in the Supreme Court in 2017 listed 3,552 domains that exclusively peddled child sexual abuse content.
