With the verdict, the court in Limburg imposed more severe penalties than the public prosecutor's office had demanded. The defendants were found guilty, amongst other things, for the possession, acquisition and distribution of child pornography. The court asserted that the four men helped set up and run the darknet platform "Elysium".
The worldwide platform was even used to arrange meetings for the sexual abuse of children, the German newspaper Bild reported. Chat rooms were available in German, English, French, Spanish and Italian.
The illegal child-porn platform was founded at the end of 2016 and had around 111,000 registered user accounts when it was shut down by the German Federal Criminal Police Office and the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office in June 2017.
