When Singapore police officers raided a man's home, they found 331 files of child pornography stored on his personal devices.

He had been storing and categorising such content as part of his personal collection for eight years.

Gan Qi Xuan, 26, a Singaporean, pleaded guilty to one count of being in possession of child pornography on Aug. 19, 2024.

He is expected to be sentenced on Aug. 19, 2024.

Started eight years ago

Gan first became acquainted with the dark web about eight years ago, sometime in 2015.

Through Reddit threads, he learned how to gain access to various websites on the dark web and found a forum on child pornography.

He browsed the contents of the forum, and downloaded his first videos and images from the dark web about three months later.

For each video he downloaded, he would watch the first 10 or 20 seconds before skipping forward a few minutes until the end of the video, and would watch each video two or three times.

Gan then began downloading pornographic material regularly, viewing the images and videos he downloaded, and sorting them into different folders on his laptop.

When his laptop started to run out of storage space, he transferred the material into his Google Drive account.

He later created a MEGA account to store the material as the cloud storage service offered more free space.

When police officers raided his house on Aug. 25, 2023, a total of 331 electronic files, consisting of 178 videos and 153 still images of child abuse material were recovered from Gan's electronic devices and online accounts.

"Many of the children appeared identifiable": prosecution

Deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Koh Yi Wen cited the quantity of child abuse materials possessed and the nature of the acts depicted on young and vulnerable children depicted as factors influencing the sentencing.

The DPP added that Gan's "long-time consumption" of the material contributed to market demand that incentivised its continued production.

The victims ranged from pre-teens to young teenagers who appeared below the age of 16, they said, adding that many of the children appeared identifiable.

"In the 10 most egregious videos alone, a total of 11 children were depicted nude or in various states of undress," the prosecution said.

The prosecution is calling for around 21 to 25 months' imprisonment, and for the sentence to include caning.

Top photo via IStock