Rome.- Italian police, in collaboration with international authorities, have permanently shut down the clandestine Telegram group ‘New Saga’, a private criminal network composed of more than 1,000 members dedicated to the trafficking and dissemination of child sexual exploitation material.
The operation, which came to light this Thursday, has resulted in the arrest of 17 people: seven leaders and administrators (one of them in Switzerland) and ten others for possession of files, arrested in different Italian provinces, the police reported in a statement.
You may be interested in: Ukraine alerts ICAO about risks in Russian airspace due to increased attacks
The investigation uncovered the existence of “a private online community, structured and organized under strict rules” and composed of more than 1,000 participants.
The investigations, coordinated by the Rome District Anti-Mafia Directorate and executed by the National Center for the Fight against Online Child Pornography (Cncpo) of the Postal Police, began in 2024 following an alert from the U.S. agency Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
More Read
The first clues regarding cryptocurrency transactions allowed for the identification of an initial administrator, 24 years old, in Campania (southern Italy).
From that point on, several agents managed to gain the trust of the group’s leaders and infiltrated as “co-administrators” to dismantle the structure from within.
The investigation uncovered a network with advanced technical support that used virtual servers, cloud storage, encryption, and automated bots to moderate conversations and restore content.
More Read
The organization’s leadership also provided assistance to users to hide the files.
To access the group and maintain membership, the organization required the payment of fees in cryptocurrencies, the submission of new illicit material, or the dissemination of links intended to recruit other users.
During the undercover operations, security forces seized more than 282 gigabytes of content, equivalent to about 22,000 videos and 34,000 images, as specified by the Police.
The operation resulted in six pretrial detention orders against the leaders and main participants residing in the provinces of Naples, Barletta, Verona, Messina, Genoa, and in Switzerland.
Likewise, 23 home and computer searches were carried out and about 200 electronic devices were seized.
Added to this was the arrest in flagrante delicto of ten Italian citizens in the provinces of Turin, Milan, Padua, Fermo, Cagliari, Palermo, and Treviso, who were found in possession of encrypted and hidden files.
More Read
The intervention in Swiss territory, carried out with the Cantonal Police and the service for International Police Cooperation, provided the elements to arrest another administrator, a 26-year-old from the province of Cremona (northern Italy).
Finally, the research analysis allowed for the identification of 996 accounts linked to foreign countries, whose data were forwarded to international authorities through Europol and Interpol with the aim of identifying those responsible and ensuring the safety of the affected minors.
“Police forces from various foreign countries have initiated similar investigations, making arrests among the users of the ‘New Saga’ group, which has already been definitively shut down,” the police statement concludes.
