The new year saw police in Cyprus investigating a total of 56 cases of child pornography so far – and it is only early March.
In 2020, the overall number of such cases that police got its hands on was 190, according to the cybercrime combatting squad’s Andreas Anastasiades.
“We are very concerned over the alarming rise of child pornography cases… within just the last 24 hours we investigated two news cases and arrested two suspects,” Anastasiades said on Monday.
“A 36-year-old man was arrested in Paphos, and a 20-year-old man was arrested in Nicosia,” he added.
He also said that 600 child pornography files were in the possession of the arrested 36-year-old political asylum seeker who lives in Paphos over the past four years.
Some of the confiscated material concerned very young children and this makes the case even more worrisome, he added.
He also said that some material was circulated via twitter – something which is recorded for the first time ever.
The suspect is not cooperating with authorities, but he is to be re-interrogated, added Anastasiades.
This case has come to the attention of Europol as well, since the pornographic material includes children from other countries, not just from Cyprus.
