95 arrested in operation targeting distribution of child sexual abuse material

Law enforcement authorities from 17 countries in Latin America and Europe arrested 95 suspects in an INTERPOL-coordinated operation called International Effort Confluencia, which executed 127 search warrants and rescued one child. The four parallel investigations conducted between March and September 2026 targeted the distribution and monetization of child sexual abuse material through online messaging groups and cryptocurrency, with 89 percent of those arrested being male and 11 percent female. In Argentina, authorities arrested a sextortion suspect allegedly in contact with more than 260 girls from different countries, while Panama arrested the administrator of a distribution group with over 700 users.

Prevention at the point of first contact is the operational advantage that coordinated enforcement highlights by its absence. The suspects identified in Confluencia operated across messaging platforms and cryptocurrency rails precisely because those channels allowed them to reach children and monetize abuse before any safeguard intervened. Guardii's anti-CSAM and anti-sextortion modules, deployed as a Meta Business Partner across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms, detect the coercive language, age-inappropriate solicitation and escalatory demand patterns that characterize both grooming and monetized extortion, blocking the hostile contact before it reaches the child and surfacing a credible threat to the appropriate authority in real time.