French authorities have arrested 55 men across 42 departments this week, including a priest, a paramedic, and a music teacher, in an operation aimed at dismantling a suspected child sex abuse network. The arrests, announced Thursday, May 22nd, follow a 10-month investigation into child pornography shared and viewed on the Telegram messaging platform.
The suspects are accused of possessing, distributing, and regularly viewing pornographic material involving children “under the age of 10,” according to France’s Office for the Fight Against Violence to Minors (OFMIN).
“It took 10 months of investigation to track down these child abusers,” said Quentin Bevan, head of OFMIN’s operational unit. “Ten months of undercover work involving thousands of exchanges, analysis and detection of pedophile images by a task force set up at the OFMIN.”
The investigation stems from an earlier crackdown last summer when individuals were arrested for sexually abusing children and uploading the material to Telegram. The network they uncovered was reportedly linked to “extremely dangerous” abusers already imprisoned since last year.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris in 2024 following a warrant issued by OFMIN for failing to moderate illegal content on the platform, and remains under formal investigation. While Bevan acknowledged that Telegram had shown some progress in cooperating with investigators since Durov’s arrest, he stated the platform is “barely fulfilling its legal obligations.”
