Law enforcement authorities from 17 countries in Latin America and Europe have arrested 95 suspects in an INTERPOL-coordinated operation targeting the distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) through online messaging groups.
The joint action, dubbed International Effort Confluencia, included four law enforcement operations between March 2026 and September 2026.
"Effective cross-border cooperation between law enforcement and the private sector has never been more urgent," said Stephen Fry, Executive Director of INTERPOL Investigation Support. "Behind every file is a child who was abused, and who is revictimized every time that image recirculates. Wherever offenders move, we have to move faster."
The investigators executed 127 search warrants to arrest nearly 95 suspects and rescued a five-year-old victim whose parent had been producing and selling abuse material online.
Ecuadorian authorities found one individual part of a group sharing CSAM who had approximately 15GB of abuse images and more than 4,000 files, while investigators in Panama arrested the administrator of a group disseminating abusive material depicting children with more than 700 users.
In Argentina, another suspect who was allegedly in contact with over 260 girls worldwide allegedly threatened victims who tried to refuse his requests for increasingly explicit content and is now accused of sextortion of minors.
"These platforms are increasingly used to groom children, coordinate abuse, connect offenders and receive payment for illegal content. They also enable the recirculation of abuse content, resulting in continued revictimization of children," INTERPOL said, referring to the messaging platforms used to disseminate and commercialize abuse content.
"Material seized during the investigation is expected to lead to further identifications of offenders and children at risk, as well as additional safeguarding action."
Last year, in February, 25 other suspects linked to a large criminal ring distributing AI-generated CSAM were arrested as part of Operation Cumberland. German cybercrime prosecutors also took down Kidflix in April 2025, one of the largest child sexual abuse material (CSAM) platforms on the dark web, and made an additional 79 arrests after identifying 1,393 suspects.
European and Latin American authorities from over a dozen countries arrested 20 more suspects in June 2025 as part of a separate joint operation targeting the production and distribution of CSAM via instant messaging groups.
More recently, in March, a global law enforcement action supported by Europol and named "Operation Alice" shut down more than 373,000 dark web sites that offered fake CSAM packages following an investigation that started in mid-2021.
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