PETALING JAYA: Police arrested a man in his 30s last night after uncovering a large collection of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) on his computer during a raid at his home in Taman Sri Andalas, Klang.
In a shocking discovery, authorities found files labelled with terms such as “Kids Porn”, “Child Porn” and “Rape”.
ALSO READ: Easy access to social media, pornography causing social problems among children
The suspect, an employee at an electrical appliance store, was at home with his family when police arrived at his double-storey residence.
The raid was part of “Op Pedo Bersepadu PDRM-MCMC,“ an operation conducted by Bukit Aman’s Sexual, Women and Child Investigation Division (D11) and the Malaysia Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
Officers from the Forensic Laboratory Division (D10) and Technical Assistance Division (D6) supported the operation, which spanned six states.
Initial checks revealed the suspect had downloaded over 500 gigabytes (GB) of pornographic material, including CSAM, via BitTorrent links.
To provide context, 500GB of storage can typically hold around 125,000 MP3 songs, with each song averaging 4 megabytes (MB) in size.
Some files were downloaded just hours before the raid, while several others dated back to earlier this year.
ALSO READ: Incest cases rise nationwide since 2021, biological fathers linked to 60% of cases - police
Further investigations indicated the man had uploaded terabytes of data to other users, raising concerns about the scale of distribution.
Police seized the suspect’s computer and router and brought him to the South Klang police headquarters for further questioning.
According to New Straits Times, senior assistant commissioner Siti Kamsiah Hassan, principal assistant director of Bukit Aman’s Sexual, Women and Child Investigations Division (D11), highlighted troubling trends where increased access to such pornography has emboldened predators, with some even resorting to child abduction attempts.
She also said the widespread availability of pornographic content has led to severe addiction, with some children, including those as young as primary school students, being drawn into creating and profiting from CSAM content.
The United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informed NST that cybercriminals dealing in CSAM are leveraging advanced encryption technology to evade detection.
Malaysia is collaborating with international entities, including the FBI, to enhance real-time coordination in targeting high-priority offenders.
