GARDAÍ HAVE ASSISTED in a Europol operation that has identified and rescued six victims of child sexual abuse. 

The operation, dubbed the Victim Identification Taskforce organised by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), took place earlier this month.

In a statement Europol, the European police agency said that more than 30 victim identification specialists from across the world joined forces at Europol’s headquarters and online to identify victims and offenders depicted in child sexual abuse material.

“These specialists combed through over 460 sets of images and video files depicting unknown victims of child sexual abuse, some as young as a few days old. They were supported by Europol specialists and intelligence analysts in the field of combating the sexual exploitation of children.

“These efforts have led to six children being identified and rescued from abuse, and one offender arrested.

“In addition, the likely country of production of child sexual abuse material has been narrowed down in 236 instances, with investigations now ongoing at the national level to identify further victims,” the statement said. 

Ireland worked on the investigation with 27 other European states and countries such as Australia, Canada, the UK and USA. INTERPOL also supported the taskforce.

Since 2014, Europol has been gathering victim identification specialists from across the world on a regular basis in order to focus on unsolved cases of child sexual abuse.

Europol said that last year the taskforce, known as Analysis Project Twins, supported 93 investigations against child sexual abuse.