Barcelona Prosecutors Report Nearly 60% Jump in Child Abuse Cases
Barcelona prosecutors opened 132 child sexual abuse material cases in 2025, up nearly 60%. Platform alerts, AI-made images and grooming figures explained.
Prosecutors in the province of Barcelona opened 132 cases involving child sexual abuse material in 2025, an increase of nearly 60% on the year before, according to the latest annual report (Memoria) of the Fiscalía Provincial de Barcelona, the provincial prosecutor’s office. La Vanguardia put the previous year’s figure at about 83 investigations.
Between 50% and 60% of the new cases started with reports sent by tech platforms such as Google, Microsoft and Meta, both La Vanguardia and Metrópoli Abierta reported. The report also records, for the first time, criminal cases over nude images of minors created with artificial intelligence.
Where the alerts come from
The large tech companies run automated systems that detect abuse material when a user stores it or sends it through their services, and they pass the findings to the authorities. The cases are handled by the prosecutors’ computer crime section (Criminalidad Informática), led by prosecutor Roberto Valverde, according to Metrópoli Abierta.
Prosecutors told the outlet that some companies are more reluctant than others, though most cooperate by processing the alerts and handing over basic data on the users under investigation. When an investigation needs more detailed information, prosecutors still have to send international letters of request (comisiones rogatorias) to courts abroad, a much slower process.
Spain’s attorney general’s office (Fiscalía General del Estado) has ordered an investigation into TikTok, but no case has been opened in Barcelona against any of these companies over their possible role in spreading the material, Metrópoli Abierta reported.
What the rise means
Prosecutors do not attribute the jump mainly to more crime. Sources in the prosecutor’s office link it to better police work, stronger detection and the specialized units for vulnerable victims and violence against children and teenagers that the office set up in 2025. Those units have improved the monitoring of cases and the support given to the children involved, the sources said.
More cases are also reaching the charging stage. In 2025 Barcelona prosecutors filed 54 indictments (escritos de calificación) for offenses under article 189 of Spain’s Criminal Code, which covers child pornography and the exploitation of minors, compared with 37 in 2024. Sources in the prosecutor’s office called the jump in new cases “extraordinary,” and Metrópoli Abierta noted that it follows a 20% increase in 2024 over 2023.
Who is being investigated
Most suspects are men, but prosecutors say no single profile fits them. The accused include close relatives and acquaintances of the victims, youth group leaders and even other children the victims know.
The most common offense is possessing and sharing the material through cloud storage or messaging apps. Prosecutors have also found files swapped over shared networks and, less often, material the suspects produced themselves.
Fewer grooming cases, first AI cases
The report also tracks online grooming, in which an adult contacts a child under 16 over the internet for sexual purposes, an offense under article 183 of the Criminal Code. New grooming cases fell: prosecutors opened 24 proceedings, a third fewer than in 2024 and back to the level of 2023. The number that reached the charging stage rose slightly, with 15 indictments filed.
In 2025 prosecutors also opened three court cases over the use of AI tools to generate images of naked bodies made to look like minors. Two further complaints of that kind did not end up in court.
Sources: Metrópoli Abierta, La Vanguardia
