MALAGA – Throughout the province of Malaga, hidden cameras in ladies’ toilets of fast-food restaurants, shopping centres and universities filmed illegal video recordings. One of the two main suspects is now in prison.
The suspects purchased equipment on the internet and made more than 71 thousand video recordings in total. A 44-year-old man and his 31-year-old niece, intended to sell the images on the internet. However, the police arrested the couple last week, before the images found their way onto the internet.
More than 100 thousand victims
The man and his niece are accused of child pornography and violation of intimacy. According to the police, the hidden cameras took images of more than 100,000 toilet visitors, most of them women. There were also images of children in the recordings. The cameras, hidden in fake devices to look like air fresheners, did not arouse suspicion initially. Each camera had a motion sensor and wide-angle lens. The suspects created a website on which they planned to place the images. They also intended to charge a registration fee of €16.99.
Arrests follow more than a year’s investigation
The police investigation took 13 months. It started in January last year when guards at the Vialia shopping center in the city of Malaga noticed the strange devices on the ladies’ toilets. They turned out to be empty at first, but from that moment plainclothes officers monitored the area. Some time later it turned out the suspects installed real air fresheners to divert the police investigation.
The investgation only bore fruit last Monday, when the police found a camera in a fake installation for the first time. With the help of the images found shortly after the installation, the police identified the suspects and caught the primary suspect red-handed.
In the man’s house, in addition to the illegal video recordings of the public ladies’ toilets, police found 120 videos of child pornography and 2,300 pictures of naked children. The man also kept more than a thousand video recordings of himself having sex with women. The police suspect the women had no knowledge of the recordings nor gave their consent.
Images not published
According to the police, the women filmed in the public toilets do not have to worry about publication on the internet. The images are not uploaded, the original recordings were confiscated, and no copies found. Police have since removed all 27 cameras mounted in the women’s public toilets. The investigation is still ongoing and the police do not rule out further arrests.
