2 men, aged 27 & 33, arrested in S’pore for possessing & accessing child abuse material after crackdown in Italy

Two men, aged 27 and 33, were arrested in Singapore for possessing and gaining access to child abuse material.

This comes after police in Italy arrested 17 people as part of investigations into an Italy-based international network that distributed child sexual abuse material.

Singapore

In response to Mothership's queries, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said that it received information from Italian authorities about an operation targeting a Telegram group sharing child abuse material.

Following up on the information received, the SPF arrested the two men for the offence of possessing or gaining access to child abuse material.

The men’s nationalities or whether they knew each other were not disclosed.

Investigations are ongoing.

Under Section 377BK of the Penal Code 1871, any person who has in possession, or has gained access to child abuse material, and knows or has reason to believe that the material is child abuse material, shall be liable to a jail term of up to five years and a fine or caning.

Organisation

In a press release on Sep. 17, the Italian police said the law enforcement operation, codenamed “Fly Trap”, led to the arrest of 17 individuals.

They allegedly belonged to a criminal organisation specialising in the possession, dissemination, and trade of large quantities of child pornography.

The criminal organisation apparently operated on Telegram.

Investigations revealed that a private online community, structured and governed by strict rules, comprised over 1,000 participants.

Access was gained via a dedicated link designed to recruit users, and continued membership required either the payment of small sums in cryptocurrency, which were labelled as "donations", or the sharing of new child pornography material.

Following information from the United States’ Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the investigation focused on the private Telegram group known as "New Saga".

Preliminary investigations and the analysis of cryptocurrency financial transactions enabled investigators to identify a 24-year-old resident of Campania, Naples, Italy, as one of the alleged network's administrators.

This paved the way for an undercover operation in which officers gained the trust of the organisation's leadership and eventually secured "co-administrator" credentials for various channels.

The channels were frequently reopened under different names after shutdowns to ensure anonymity and operational continuity.

Administrators also allegedly provided technical support to members on how to conceal files and evade law enforcement detection.

During the undercover operations alone, police secured over 282 gigabytes of illicit content, including more than 22,000 videos and 34,000 images.

This led to the execution of six pre-trial detention orders against alleged leaders and prominent participants in the regions of Naples, Barletta, Verona, Messina, and Genoa in Italy, as well as in Switzerland.

The investigation also found 996 accounts linked to 98 foreign countries.

Arrestati 17 appartenenti a organizzazione criminale per detenzione e divulgazione di grossi quantitativi di materiale pedopornografico. L’indagine condotta dai poliziotti del Centro nazionale per contrasto pedopornografia online della Postale #17settembrehttps://t.co/uRlGmDiCQL pic.twitter.com/efztsB5MT2

— Polizia di Stato (@poliziadistato) September 17, 2026