Description: Europol’s Operation Cumberland uncovered a global network distributing AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The operation has led to 25 arrests and 273 identified suspects across 19 countries. The AI-enabled abuse allows criminals to create exploitative content at scale with minimal expertise.
Editor Notes: Timeline notes: The first reported arrest was sometime in November 2024 of a Danish national, which led to the authorities uncovering an online platform distributing AI-generated CSAM. On February 26, 2025, Operation Cumberland was launched. The initial wave of actions reportedly led to 25 arrests, 33 house searches, and 173 seizures of electronic devices across 19 different countries. The investigation is ongoing.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown deepfake technology developer and Unknown deepfake CSAM tools developed an AI system deployed by Suspects identified in Operation Cumberland and CSAM distributors, which harmed Potential victims of exploitation , minors and Children.
Incident Stats
Incident ID
958
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2025-02-26
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
Europol has supported authorities from 19 countries in a large-scale hit against child sexual exploitation that has led to 25 arrests worldwide. The suspects were part of a criminal group whose members were engaged in the distribution of im…
Twenty-five people have been arrested in a global operation over AI-generated child sexual abuse material, said Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, in a statement Friday.
Operation Cumberland, which was led by Danish law e…
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
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