Italian police arrest 17 and seize 282.9 GB of files in global Telegram abuse probe

Undercover infiltration and arrests

Italian Postal Police, coordinated by the Rome District Anti-Mafia Directorate (DDA), dismantled an international child exploitation network operating on Telegram under the investigation name Operation Fly Trap. The judicial action resulted in 17 arrests and precautionary measures across Italy and Switzerland, including 10 individuals caught in the act. Arrests took place in multiple Italian regions including Lombardy, Veneto, Puglia, and Campania, alongside local enforcement actions including the detention of a 60-year-old resident in the metropolitan area of Cagliari. The network was led by four Italian citizens and one Swiss national, all aged between 22 and 28.

The breakthrough followed a year-long covert operation by an Italian undercover officer who infiltrated the private platform, gained the administrators' trust, and rose to the position of co-administrator with direct access to hidden channels. Rome Chief Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi described the operational structure of the ring at a press conference.

This organization was structured like a multinational company.

Architecture of the New Saga network

The syndicate operated through a private Telegram community called New Saga, which gathered more than 1,009 members worldwide. The core leadership coordinated its strategy inside an exclusive internal chat known as The Hall of Kings (La Sala dei Re). Inside this private space, the administrators managed servers, set behavioural rules, moderated incoming content, and developed automated software bots designed to reconstitute the community immediately whenever Telegram shut down individual channels.

A formal statement from the State Police outlined how the platform recruited and vetted its participants:

Operational activities revealed the creation of a private, structured, and organized online community governed by strict rules; it comprised over 1,009 participants and was accessible via a dedicated link designed to recruit users, who were permitted to remain only after paying small sums in cryptocurrency (labeled as 'donations') or sharing new child pornography material.

Cryptocurrency payments and international reach

To gain access and retain membership in the New Saga group, participants were required to make cryptocurrency transfers framed as donations, ranging between $3 and $9, or alternatively upload previously uncirculated illicit files. This mechanism ensured a continuous influx of funds and new content while filtering out passive observers.

The investigation originated in 2024 following an alert from the United States agency Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which detected the group's activities on Telegram. Italian investigators subsequently identified 996 user accounts connected to 98 different countries. Italian authorities shared these digital profiles with foreign law enforcement agencies, leading to additional arrests outside Italy as cross-border inquiries proceed.

Digital evidence and ongoing proceedings

Specialists from the Cyber Security Postal Police seized 282.9 gigabytes of illicit digital data during the nationwide raids. The confiscated cache contains more than 34,000 images and 22,000 videos, with some files documenting abuse against victims as young as four years old. In Sardinia, police searched the residence of the 60-year-old suspect transferred to Uta prison, seizing multiple digital storage devices containing thousands of files that he allegedly shared with group members, while a 33-year-old man was formally reported after minor quantities of illegal files were found in his home. Italian prosecutors confirmed that proceedings remain open to identify further participants and international affiliates.