The special police investigation team in Essen and Mülheim/Ruhr has been dedicated to the fight against child pornography and sexual abuse of children for over a year. Now the BAO “Herkules” draws a first positive balance.

Essen (dpa / lnw) – Just over a year after it was founded, a special investigation group of the police in Essen and Mülheim/Ruhr took stock of their work in the fight against child pornography and sexualized violence against children. The so-called BOA “Hercules” was launched on November 1, 2021 in order to be able to better and more effectively meet the major challenges of crime against children in the digital space.

Since then, the police’s special organizational structure (BOA) has more than doubled the amount of data evaluated, and on average a search warrant has been executed every day. Police said the number of investigations into sexual abuse of children has increased by 50 percent in a year.

A particular problem is the growing digitization. In this way, huge amounts of data could be stored more and more cheaply and easily and, thanks to increasing transmission speeds, exchanged by the perpetrators at lightning speed worldwide. Pedoctoral criminals have upgraded significantly in recent decades, can hide well in virtual space and believe they are safe behind encryption and firewalls.

With “Herkules” the police have stepped up their fight against child abuse, deployed more staff and better technology and have been able to optimize workflows. With combined forces, searches could be carried out, as was the case last week (November 16/17). The investigators searched 22 apartments in the morning hours, seizing 14 cell phones, two computers and several USB sticks. These would now be viewed and evaluated by the experts.

The very name “Hercules” points to the Herculean task that the investigators are facing. Each search results in additional data carriers that have to be evaluated. If the amount of data currently being evaluated were saved on standard hard drives and stacked upright, it would be as high as the tallest building in the Ruhr area: the former RWE tower (now: Westenergie Tower) measures 162 meters.

“We need staying power and are aware that we are running a marathon,” said the head of the BAO, criminal director André Dobersch. Despite the great emotional strain, his team is highly motivated and is fighting with great commitment against sexual violence against children. “For us, every child that we can save from abuse is both a success and an incentive to keep fighting.”

For example, a 49-year-old who is suspected of having abused a child several times for almost a year with increasing intensity was arrested at the beginning of the month. The man is now in custody in Essen.

The BAO “Herkules” even provides insights into the daily work of the investigators in a video that can be viewed on the authority’s YouTube channel.