A large-scale action of the Greek police and with the participation of German internet criminality experts ended with the arrest of 39 people, charged with distributing child pornography videos over the internet. The action was initiated by the departments for internet criminality in Athens and Thessaloniki but it also took place in several other cities – Larissa, Volos, Iraklio, Hanya, Monemvasya, Corfu, Preveza. Arrested are 39 people, out of which 37 are Greek, one British, and another from Kazakhstan. All of them are men between 20 and 59 years of age.

Among the arrested there is one high school teacher from the Athenian neighborhood Kalitea, one fire fighter from the same neighborhood, two hotel owners in Corfu and Monemvasya, six businessmen, six university students, and one navy man. 20 of the charged have been caught on the crime scene, while they were sitting in front of their computers distributing videos of underage rapes. All 20 of them have immediately been questioned by the prosecutors of the cities they were arrested in.

The police operation had the codename “Spider Web” and it took place in secrecy in 12 Greek cities. The operation started after German experts detected 170 Greek IP addresses in the network, which had common software and through it, they were distributing the videos among themselves. The Greek police found out that those addresses belong to 39 users, who have been followed between June 13^th and 19^th, after which they were arrested.

Many of the arrested have more than 3 archives with child pornography and this is why the charges against them are more severe. The police have seized 87 hard drives, 5 laptops, and many DVDs and photo materials of child pornography with a total size of 35 000 GB. This is the first time so many child pornography materials are found in Greece.