The police received the first reports of a child pornography suspect from Enkhuizen in 2022

Police in action in 2022 were already concerned about a 26-year-old man from Enkhuizen who was accused of sexually abusing a child and creating 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 remanded in custody on Friday afternoon.

He is accused of deliberately luring boys aged between 10 and 16 from all parts of the Netherlands and some from abroad, the spokesman said. The man will now spend two weeks in custody, the investigating judge decided on Friday. His custody can then be extended by 90 days at a time by a district court.

The first two tips about the man were received by the police in autumn 2022. However, it was not clear from these reports that this would be such a large-scale case, the spokesman told the news agency. Due to capacity constraints at the police in North Holland, the Rotterdam police took over the case at the beginning of the year. “After the investigation began, 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 persuaded underage boys to perform sexual acts for him, which he then recorded and kept. Authorities have found no evidence that he distributed the pornography or used it to blackmail his victims.

So far, one boy has filed a complaint against the man. The OM assumes that more will follow – the authorities have found recordings of hundreds of boys. According to the spokesman, the police have identified about two-thirds of the victims and spoken to “about ten” of them.

“Most of the boys did not even know that something criminal had happened because they thought they had been in contact with a young girl. We are now examining to what extent it is necessary to make contact because this also puts pressure on the victims.”

Police have classified the images by severity and will contact the victims of the “most intense” images, the spokesman said. The OM hopes the boys can tell authorities more about how the suspect contacted them and incited them to engage in sexual acts.