The National Police has arrested a sexual predator in Catalonia, a minor who has already entered a closed center, for harassing more than twenty young people from all over Spain through social networks, most of them also minors. age.
According to what the National Police reported this Wednesday, the detained minor had impersonated the identity of a young man from Barcelona from whom he stole his photographs from social networks to use them in the profiles with which he operated. Specifically, this underage sexual predator contacted victims through a well-known social network and then sexually extorted them through another platform. In addition, he even asked other people to open profiles on social networks in his name, after some platforms no longer allowed them to create more.
After his arrest, the minor was placed at the disposal of the Juvenile Section of the Prosecutor’s Office, with the judicial authority decreeing his precautionary placement in a closed regime.
The investigation, carried out by agents from the Central Cybercrime Unit, began following the presentation of several complaints in different provinces of Spain. When expert researchers in the fight against cybercrime learned of the facts, they began a thorough study to find similarities in the complaints that could share authorship.
In this sense, the agents found a series of unique characteristics such as the modus operandi, the usernames used or the way of requesting images of sexual content and threatening the victims, which was done with special cruelty.
With these elements, the investigators compiled up to 22 complaints filed with the National Police throughout Spain: Oviedo, Barcelona, ??Palencia, Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Torrejón de Ardoz and Granada, in which they detected common links in all of them.
At first, the investigations focused on a young man whose photo appeared on the social media profiles from which the criminal acts were being carried out. However, after several police efforts, the agents confirmed his innocence, proving that someone was usurping his identity and using his photos without his knowledge or consent.
It was from this moment, and after proving that the same author was behind the complaints, when the coordinated collaboration of all the investigators from the provinces involved began.
As the investigations progressed, the agents observed that there were certain IP addresses that were repeated in all the investigations carried out, which led to two specific addresses, separated by a few kilometers.
When carrying out periodic reviews of the complaints that came in during the development of the investigation – since the profiles were still active – several additional ones were found distributed throughout the national territory.
Given the existence of sufficient evidence of the alleged participation of the tenants of those homes in these cases of sexual harassment, an entry and search was carried out by court order. During the police operation, the agents detained the perpetrator, a minor, and seized his mobile phone, which contained evidence of the criminal acts.
