Overview

• French authorities say a man in his twenties was placed under formal investigation and incarcerated on charges including organized possession, consultation and dissemination of child sexual abuse images, cruelty to animals, and abuse of minors.
• Investigators report seizing several thousand child abuse files from his computer, with the prosecutor describing some material as involving rapes of infants.
• The suspect is accused of targeting vulnerable girls on sites for suicidal youths and coercing about fifty of them via webcam to self‑harm or engrave his name on their bodies.
• During custody, the man admitted decapitating dogs and rabbits and acknowledged impulses of rape, torture or murder, according to the Évreux prosecutor.
• The inquiry is led by the Rouen judicial police and the national juvenile office in Nanterre, and officials link the case to the transnational '764' network, which has seen related arrests in Germany and the U.S., including the founder’s 2021 sentencing.