EIGHTEEN DEVICES HAVE been seized by gardaí as part of raids targeting the sharing of child sexual abuse material.

Searches at nine locations nationwide were coordinated by the Online Child Exploitation Unit within the Garda National Protective Services Bureau and conducted by gardaí attached to Divisional Protective Services Units.

Investigations into these seizures are now underway and gardaí say a number of arrests will be made in due course as part of this ongoing operation.

Yesterday’s raids were part of Operation Fever led by the Polish National Police in conjunction with Europol’s Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce and eleven member states, including Ireland.

Operation Fever has led to 166 arrests across Europe. Of these, 111 people have so far been arrested for sharing and distributing child sexual abuse material.

Gardaí said that those arrested were identified to have produced ‘paedophile films’ and images, run paedophile forums online, shared or possessed child sexual abuse material and in many cases were suspected of having physically abused children.

Over 594,000 files with illegal content have been seized from more than 6,000 digital media platforms.