This map shows 95,000 downloaders of child abuse pictures worldwide

Over the last ten months, VG has mapped downloaders of abuse material. This world map shows where 95,000 downloaders of abuse images are located. List below.

Thanks to an extensive data material VG knows of nearly 95,000 people worldwide who download photos and films showing child abuse. Most of them have probably paid to gain access to the material.

Click here to see the interactive world map.

Today VG presents the first part in a series of articles on people who download child abuse images. The Norwegian newspaper possesses information about 36 million downloads from all over the world. For ten months VG has mapped and identified Norwegians who have downloaded abuse material.

Read the entire story here: The Downloaders

95,000 child abuse downloaders worldwide

VG has detailed information on a large number of Norwegians who, according to our data, have spent time, money and resources on increasing the demand for child abuse images.

We have, however, information on far, far more downloaders from all over the world.

In total 430,177 files showing sexual abuse of children have been downloaded to 94,989 IP addresses the world over.

For every download, we have indications of the user name and email address of the downloader, in addition to information on the file and the IP address it was downloaded to.

Even if an IP address is not the same as a person, there is reason to assume that VG has information on close to 95,000 people from all over the world, who spend time, money and resources on downloading child abuse images.

The information is gathered from activities logged from a small number of file-sharing services which are preferred by people who share this kind of material.

Child abuse networks

Einar Otto Stangvik, computer analyst in VG, believes that the map may indicate the location of several paedophile networks.

– The reason why one specific file-sharing service is used in one specific country may be that paedophiles and downloaders in this country discuss and recommend this service when they want to share abuse material. We have seen in several hidden forums that they recommend certain file-sharing services, and this discussion may happen not just on the Internet. One can therefore look at this world map as a representation of several geographic networks of downloaders and paedophiles, says Stangvik.

– Another, more practical explanation may be that these countries simply have the best Internet connections, Stangvik continues.

Stangvik is the one who has uncovered the material. His analyses of the logs have revealed information on where abuse material is downloaded.

He says that there may well be more people than those VG now know of, who have downloaded abuse material.

– These 95,000 IP addresses have downloaded the same files as the Norwegian downloaders seem to have done. It is not impossible that there is more abuse material in the data logs than what we have found so far, Stangvik says.

Majority of industrialized countries

The majority of the downloaders are in the large industrialized countries: Germany has the most downloaders in VG’s data material with 18,107 downloading IP addresses.

Then follow the USA and Russia with 13,630 and 11,118 IP addresses respectively. The next countries on the list are Great Britain (3743 IP addresses), France (3393) and Japan (3336).

VG has identified 78 Norwegians who seem to have downloaded abuse material.

They are of all ages. The youngest downloader VG has identified is still in highschool. The oldest is well over sixty.

They have all kinds of jobs. Some have top positions in the health services, others are unemployed and disabled. Some have done Christian work, others have held central positions in the armed forces. Some are manual workers; others are artists, musicians or photographers. Some work in IT.

All the downloaders are men. That is one of the few common denominators.

– Thought it would be attractive

The only ones who have been able to validate VG’s material, are the downloaders themselves. We have therefore contacted and confronted ten of the men. Seven of them admit that our information corresponds to what they have actually done.

– How on earth have you found out all this about me, is the reaction of the first person to be confronted by VG. He runs his own company.

– I don’t think I am doing something wrong. We all have different preferences. But if the police get hold of this, I go to jail, lose my house and my job. That would be the end of it.

Several of the men VG confronts react by deleting all they have on their computer. One of the downloaders smashed his computer before he threw it in the ocean.

– I didn’t know whether to puke or shit myself. I was completely beside myself. But if you are looking for that kind of person, you have come to the wrong place. Sometimes, of course, you start to download something, and you don’t always realize what is being downloaded, is his explanation to VG why we have found information about him in the data material.

Another insists that he has only downloaded out of curiosity.

– I thought it would be attractive. But every time I opened one of the films I had downloaded I only saw brutal abuse.

All kinds of people

Most of the men have been downloading for a long time, unbothered by the police. That corresponds to the image the National Criminal Investigation Service (Kripos) have of the downloaders.

– Many of the people we catch in these cases are people who are completely unknown to the police. They are ordinary people from all professions, all social classes, all income groups, all ethnicities, all religions, says police Superintendent Bjørn-Erik Ludvigsen at Kripos to VG.

He has worked as investigator at the Section for Sexual Crime and is among those with the most knowledge of who the downloaders are.

– There is no offender profile that fits those who have a sexual preference for children and crimes against children. They are all kinds of people. They are policemen, journalists, unemployed and everything else, he says.

The investigator thinks that people who download child abuse material are also responsible for the crime against the children.

– Every instance of sharing or downloading abuse material contributes to maintaining the market for new instances of abuse against children. Without the downloaders there had not been as much child abuse. Furthermore, the images constitute a continuous violation of the children as long as the material stays on the Internet and is spread across the globe. They have to live with it for the rest of their lives, he says.

The list

Number of IP adressesfor each country that has downloaded child abuse images, according to the material VG have analyzed:

18107 Germany

13630 United States

11118 Russia

3743 United Kingdom

3393 France

3336 Japan

2969 Brazil

2364 Italy

2073 Ukraine

1899 Spain

1837 Australia

1777 Netherlands

1723 Canada

1672 Poland

1589 Mexico

1256 Sweden

1178 Turkey

1071 Argentina

981 Belarus

973 Austria

885 Czech Republic

851 Hungary

750 Switzerland

723 Peru

649 Indonesia

612 Saudi Arabia

540 Finland

502 Belgium

446 Chile

430 Norway

422 Denmark

410 Slovak Republic

387 Uzbekistan

361 Romania

359 Iran

350 Serbia

333 Greece

296 Israel

294 India

287 Kazakhstan

286 Thailand

283 South Africa

280 Malaysia

279 Colombia

253 Portugal

253 Algeria

250 Taiwan

250 New Zealand

221 Ireland

212 Bulgaria

207 Philippines

205 Egypt

196 Republic of Korea

180 Croatia

153 Venezuela

149 Isle of Man

142 Republic of Lithuania

134 Tunisia

132 Hong Kong

131 China

125 Yemen

123 Singapore

117 Luxembourg

113 Costa Rica

111 Uruguay

106 Latvia

99 Estonia

99 Sri Lanka

98 Mauritius

95 Bolivia

93 Ecuador

92 Pakistan

83 Republic of Moldova

81 Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

80 Paraguay

71 Slovenia

69 Guatemala

67 Iraq

63 Réunion

63 Puerto Rico

62 Azerbaijan

56 Bosnia and Herzegovina

55 United Arab Emirates

53 Nicaragua

52 Afghanistan

50 Iceland

49 Morocco

47 Kuwait

44 Oman

40 El Salvador

39 Kyrgyzstan

39 Trinidad and Tobago

35 Syria

33 Panama

32 Palestine

31 Lebanon

31 Georgia

20 Bahrain

20 Dominican Republic

18 Tajikistan

18 Bangladesh

16 Macedonia

16 Honduras

16 Cambodia

16 Albania

14 Senegal

14 Armenia

12 Nigeria

12 Guadeloupe

12 Cyprus

11 Brunei

10 Malta

10 Guam

10 Greenland

10 Bahamas