The police have been searching around two dozen apartments in the capital since early Tuesday morning. The suspicion: possession and distribution of child pornography. More than 40 officers are on duty.

The State Criminal Police Office has been searching several apartments in Berlin since early Tuesday morning on suspicion of child and youth pornography. Around 40 emergency services are on the road, the police said on Twitter.

All police departments in the city are involved. It is about the initial suspicion of “possession, possession and distribution of child pornography and youth pornography”. The investigations focused exclusively on the capital.

They were aimed at 20 suspects, said a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office. Private homes would be searched. According to initial findings, these are individual cases and not a network.

According to prosecutors, the information about the suspects was obtained via Whatsapp groups or came from the US non-governmental organization NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, German: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children), which the Internet filters for abuse content and forwards the information to investigative authorities.

The investigations, which have been ongoing for some time, are therefore concentrated exclusively on the capital. There are no searches in other cities or locations, it said.