KUALA LUMPUR: A 13-year-old girl was among eight teens detained in an operation that uncovered a disturbing trend of minors producing and selling sexually explicit animated content online.
Bukit Aman CID director Comm Datuk M Kumar said the finding emerged during Ops Pedo 3.0, an integrated operation conducted with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) from Sept 14 to 16.
He said investigations found that some of those detained had not only downloaded child sexual abuse material (CSAM) but also produced anime-style animated content before distributing or selling it online for between RM50 and RM60 each.
“Some suspects became more creative by producing their own anime-style animations before selling the content online through payment methods such as e-wallets and PayPal.
“This trend is deeply concerning as it shows active involvement in producing the content, rather than merely consuming it,” he told a press conference yesterday.
Comm Kumar said 53 people, aged between 13 and 56, were detained during the operation, comprising 51 men and two women.
Of the total, eight were teens and 45 were adults, including a teacher and a laboratory assistant.
“Two of the suspects, aged 24 and 44, respectively, were public servants from educational institutions.
“The cases were unrelated and they were not from the same school,” he said.
The operation targeted 92 identified targets based on intelligence gathered and analysed by the Malaysia Internet Crime Against Children unit.
Police seized 95 items, comprising 90 digital devices including mobile phones, computers, laptops, tablets, storage devices and routers or modems, as well as five sex toys.
Initial examinations of the devices found 653,193 digital files, comprising 540,127 CSAM files and 113,066 adult pornography files.
A total of 52 investigation papers were opened with 23 cases charged in court, while 29 remained under investigation as of Sept 21.
Comm Kumar said more than 2.1 million CSAM and pornography files have been uncovered through Ops Pedo and Operation Cyber Guardian since 2024.
He said collectively, it resulted in 170 arrests and the seizure of 369 items, besides the discovery of 2,123,887 CSAM and pornography files.
Comm Kumar said the number of arrests under Ops Pedo has also risen steadily over the past three years.
“Ops Pedo 1.0 in 2024 resulted in 13 arrests before the figure rose to 31 last year. In Ops Pedo 3.0, the number of arrests rose further to 53.
“The three Ops Pedo resulted in 97 arrests, 94 investigation papers and 214 seized items with 1,573,193 CSAM and pornography files uncovered,” he said.
Comm Kumar urged parents to step up monitoring of their children’s online activities, including social media use, stressing that enforcement alone was insufficient to curb such offences.
