CNN \u2014 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fifty-five men from across France were arrested between Monday and Thursday morning as part of a large-scale operation to dismantle a pedophile network operating through the messaging service Telegram, according to France\u2019s Office for the Protection of Minors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The suspects, aged between 25 and 75, are accused of exchanging messages on Telegram with an \u201cextremely dangerous\u201d child sex offender who was incarcerated in the summer of 2024, and whose own children were rescued after being abused, Quentin Bevan, head of the OFMIN\u2019s operational unit told CNN on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese 55 individuals all exchanged CSAM imagery (Child Sexual Abuse Material) with the dangerous pedophile, so we had digital evidence implicating all of them,\u201d said Bevan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bevan said that the arrests are \u201cthe fruit of a ten-month long investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a major investigation and infiltration operation on this Telegram group,\u201d Bevan said. \u201cWe had to follow the exchanges, analyze them, and identify the individuals hiding behind these Telegram pseudonyms \u2014 especially those who had children, had criminal records, or worked in sensitive professions involving contact with children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bevan said the men are from all ages and backgrounds: fathers, civil servants, military personnel, and paramedics. In France, the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material is punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a \u20ac100,000 ($112,747) fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a statement to CNN, Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn said the company has taken \u201cextensive measures to combat child abuse.\u201d He said more than 367,000 groups and channels related to child sex abuse material have been removed in 2025 so far, as a result of its efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is not the first high-profile case involving the platform in France. In August 2024, Telegram founder Pavel Durov was detained at Paris\u2019s Bourget Airport on a warrant related to Telegram\u2019s moderation policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
French authorities indicted<\/a> Durov on August 28, 2024 on several charges, including money laundering and spreading child sex abuse material. Durov said in a statement<\/a> soon afterwards that he was committed to improving his app\u2019s moderation and that authorities were trying to hold him \u201cpersonally responsible for other people\u2019s illegal use of Telegram.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CNN \u2014 Fifty-five men from across France were arrested between Monday and Thursday morning as part of a large-scale operation to dismantle a pedophile network operating through the messaging service Telegram, according to France\u2019s Office for the Protection of Minors. The suspects, aged between 25 and 75, are accused of exchanging messages on Telegram with an \u201cextremely dangerous\u201d child sex offender who was incarcerated in the summer of 2024, and whose own children were rescued after being abused, Quentin Bevan, head of the OFMIN\u2019s operational unit told CNN on Thursday. \u201cThese 55 individuals all exchanged CSAM imagery (Child Sexual Abuse Material)… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47275,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47273\/revisions\/47275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}