Police received first reports of Enkhuizen child porn suspect in 2022
Police working in 2022 were already concerned about a 26-year-old Enkhuizen man accused of sexually abusing one child and making child sexual abuse content involving several hundred others, a spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service told ANP. The man was arrested earlier this week, and he was remanded into custody on Friday afternoon.
He was accused of targeting boys between the ages of 10 and 16 from all over the Netherlands and some from abroad, the spokesperson said. The man will now spend two weeks in custody, the examining magistrate ruled on Friday. His detention can then be extended by consecutive 90-day periods by a district court.
The police received the first two reports about the man in the autumn of 2022. But it was not clear from these reports that this would be such a large-scale case, the spokesperson told the newswire. Due to a capacity shortage at the Noord-Holland police, the Rotterdam police picked up the case early this year. “Once the investigation started, large amounts of material and images of abuse were found.” It is unclear how many children fell victim to the man in the past two years.
The OM announced on Friday morning that the man was arrested earlier this week. According to the OM, the man posed as a girl online and convinced minor boys to perform sexual acts for him, which he recorded and kept. The authorities have found no indication that he distributed the pornography or used it to blackmail his victims.
So far, one boy has pressed charges against the man. The OM expects more to follow—the authorities found footage of hundreds of boys. According to the spokesperson, the police have identified about two-thirds of the victims and have spoken to “about ten” of them.
“Most of the boys did not know that something criminal happened because they thought they had contact with a young girl. We are now looking at the extent to which it is necessary to make contact because you are also burdening victims with it.”
The police divided the footage into categories of severity and will contact victims of the “most intense” images, the spokesperson said. The OM hopes the boys can tell the authorities more about how the suspect made contact with them and incited them to commit sexual acts.
