At first it was a suspect, now there are tens of thousands: The abuse scandal at Bergisch Gladbach is a complex of unimaginable proportions. The atrocities push even experienced investigators to their limits.
Sometimes a comparison helps. Especially when it comes to things that cannot be put into words to the last detail. “You can think of it as a puzzle with thousands of pieces,” says crime director Michael Esser about his work. The edge, the first parts, you always get them together pretty quickly. “But if you want to get to the center, it becomes more and more difficult,” says Esser, who is sitting in the Cologne police headquarters and is supposed to clear up a case with his people in which a new abyss can open up under each particle found.
And with no end in sight yet. “We will also experience,” says the policeman, “that we will not find some stones at all.” It’s about the case Bergisch Gladbach.
The city, just a few kilometers from Cologne, has unwittingly become a cipher. For a network of men who abuse children and exchange information about them on the Internet. The abuse complex was given the name Bergisch Gladbach because it was there that a suspect came from, who in a way was at the beginning. On Monday (August 10th) the process start against the 43-year-old in Cologne. That puts the work of police to the fore anew. In the meantime, she has gained a lot of knowledge.
At the beginning of the investigation was a family man
A search in October 2019 at the father of the family marked the beginning. Investigators were in the course of another trial Child pornography encountered him. As they search the rooms, they find thousands of pictures and videos, huge amounts of data. And above all: digital traces of chat partners. From there, they gradually track down more and more suspects. As it turns out, they only had the first piece of the puzzle in hand.
Today, investigators are talking about a new dimension. The investigation has long since been on the whole Germany expanded. Almost 50 children were identified and released from the perpetrators. “Child abuse has existed before, “says Esser, who heads the” Berg “investigation group.
What is special is the brutal procedure that has been determined. “If you look into the chats and read what is written there, you may have thought in the past: someone’s thick. But we find that what was said actually happened.” For example, the exchange of children for abuse. So far, he has not been able to describe a particular “perpetrator type”. “It is a cross-section of society.”
Michael Esser, head of the investigation group “Berg”: “If you look into the chats and read what is written there, you might have thought in the past: someone’s thick. But we find that what has been said has actually happened . ” (Source: dpa)
Investigators: These photos “make the soul sick”
The case has several challenges for the police. One is psychological: the material has to be looked at. The so-called evaluators sit together in Cologne in a large room “so that they can take care of each other”. Psychologists and pastors are also at your side. “These photos, videos and, above all, the statements in chats make the soul sick if you don’t process it,” says Esser.
Markus Hartmann, head of the Cybercrime central and contact point: At the ZAC, a task force is busy assigning real names to the pseudonyms. (Source: Oliver Berg / dpa)
The other challenge is the unmasking of the perpetrators, who operate in a parallel world on the Internet and hide behind pseudonyms. With every search, new ones are added. “We’re talking about 30,000 unknown suspects,” explains Markus Hartmann, head of the Cybercrime NRW central and contact point (ZAC NRW). The number sounds as incredible as it is terrifyingly high. An entire medium-sized city full of possible perpetrators? A task force at ZAC is busy assigning real names to the pseudonyms.
The perpetrators have felt safe for years
Of course there is a lack of clarity, says Chief Prosecutor Hartmann – there is not exactly one suspect behind each of the 30,000 “digital identities”. Maybe one has several identities, maybe there are file corpses in a forum. “But as a rule, the perpetrators put on a certain reputation in these forums,” says Hartmann. “If you offer a certain type of material, you get more access to other areas yourself.” One assumes to have to make “rather a small” discount. “It’s not a mini-scene,” says Hartmann. “This is a Germany-wide and Europe-networked scene.”
Within this scene, the perpetrators find a resonance room in which their actions are discussed as a matter of course. Hartmann calls it an “interaction of factual events and communication”. “That means: If people have a tendency to abuse children but do not know how to put it into practice – then they can find discussion groups on the Internet where they can learn it.”
The fact that 30,000 charges will ultimately be filed is considered utopian due to the technical and legal circumstances. Nevertheless, the whole work is extremely important, says Hartmann. “Because it is the first time that people who have obviously felt safe for years can put a price tag on the job.”
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