Freiburg (dpa/lsw) – The police are investigating ten men between the ages of 16 and 79 because they are said to have distributed or possessed child pornographic images and videos. Investigators searched ten apartments in the Waldshut district on Tuesday last week, the police said on Tuesday. There were no arrests, a spokesman said.

The police confiscated smartphones, computers and mobile data carriers during the raid. Investigators identified over 400 child pornography files. The accused are therefore suspected of having distributed child pornographic images and videos, mostly on messenger services such as WhatsApp. According to the spokesman, the suspects were not connected to each other. Small amounts of drugs were also found on one of them. The evaluation of the devices is ongoing.

Already in October there had been a major police operation in southern Baden because of child pornographic material. At that time there were searches in Freiburg and the districts of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, Emmendingen, Waldshut and Lörrach.