A NICOSIA man, arrested last week and held in custody on child porn related charges, has been given a new remand after CID officers discovered a further 200,000 pictures and explicit videos involving minors.
Fresh evidence has now surfaced suggesting that the suspect may well be part of an organised crime ring designed to trade pictures of children in explicit pornographic material.
On Thursday, a Nicosia Court handed the municipality employee a new six-day remand after around 200,000 pornographic videos and pictures involving children were found on the remaining computers at his work and on his computer at work.
The 45-year-old father of three had been remanded last week when his computer was pinged by the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CyTA) after Interpol intercepted the IP address on his computer downloading a video containing child pornography from a website.
The suspect, who works at the computer administration department of a municipality in the Nicosia district, also fixes computers at his home as a second job.
Police believe the suspect has been accessing and downloading the illegal material since 2004 – with officials revealing that the suspect would sometimes download child porn from his computer at work during working hours, (11am to 2pm), apart from the main hours when he downloaded from his home (from 11pm to 4am).
The suspect has so far remained tight-lipped, continuously telling officers that “I have nothing to say”, according to CID Investigator Alexis Mavros.
According to CID officials, Interpol have passed information to the Cypriot authorities suggesting three more people on the island might have been downloading from the same website.
Investigating officers requested more time to investigate the man’s computers and social background, when, apart from discovering more pictures and videos on his computers at work, officers also discovered close-up shots of male Cypriot children in primary school plays that were recorded with the use of a camcorder.
According to Mavros, investigations have now begun at the suspect’s work, where the man was in charge of the computer department.
“The suspect would have access to some 30 computers in the offices and we are now looking into whether he may have copied pictures of children from other people’s computers onto his,” said Mavros.
Police also found 15 CDs believed to contain pictures and videos of pornographic material including children.
According to investigators in the case, contact was also made with the FBI in an attempt to break some of the codes used by the suspect to block access to his picture and video files.
Investigators had found child porn websites bookmarked in his favourites on his computer. Some of these websites are believed to contain webcam linkups with children who strip live for the viewer or perform lewd acts.
FBI and Interpol officials have been kept informed of the investigation.
