LYON, France – Law enforcement officers from seven European countries have joined forces for a four-day ‘hackathon’ to target the emerging trend of subscription-based content platforms being used to facilitate human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Operation CyberProtect III (19 - 22 May 2026), co-organized by INTERPOL and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), generated dozens of new leads, including the identification of suspect profiles, potential victims and suspicious cases.
Organized crime networks are increasingly using content subscription services commonly associated with sexually explicit material, to recruit and sexually exploit women, minors and vulnerable adults. Victims are lured with promises of income before being funneled into exploitative content production.
In February 2026, an INTERPOL Purple Notice was published to call attention to this modus operandi, which typically involves the criminal group masquerading as a legitimate modelling agency. Once engaged, they take control of the victim's account, retaining the majority of the victim's earnings, while applying escalating psychological pressure and coercion to compel victims to produce increasingly explicit content.
Hackathon: an innovative law enforcement format to combat sexual exploitation
During Operation CyperProtect III, 14 officers from participating countries worked side by side to detect red flags from websites, social media, messaging apps and subscription platforms.
This format, known as a ‘hackathon’ in law enforcement, describes a focused event during which participants collaborate to seek solutions to a specific policing challenge using digital tools. Significant results from the operation included the identification of:
• 34 suspicious cases
• 18 suspect profiles
• 27 potential victims
The paywalled architecture of subscription sites and their coded language, enables traffickers to evade detection, while jurisdictional fragmentation and evidentiary challenges hinder law enforcement responses.
Criminal groups also leverage online platforms to market coaching programmes that claim to teach men how to make profit from exploiting women via content subscription platforms. This emerging threat is often referred to as “e-pimping,” describing traffickers who use digital tools to orchestrate exploitation at scale.
Beyond generating leads, Operation CyberProtect III identified important findings and trends, including:
• A high prevalence of ads featuring female models from South America, highlighting it as a key region of origin for both real-life and virtual sexual exploitation;
• Recruiters using encrypted messaging platforms to target potential victims, including requests for nude images without age verification;
• Content producers being bought and sold for significant sums. One messaging group involved in this kind of activity was found to contain up to 28,000 adverts;
• Use of cryptocurrencies and diamond emojis — which are transferable to virtual currencies — as payment systems. Rates detected were as low as USD 3 for 25 minutes of private video from a content maker;
• Social media platforms being used by e-pimps and managers to exchange their experiences and strategies;
• The use of AI to generate fake profiles to complement human-led content operations.
David Caunter, Director of Organized and Emerging Crime at INTERPOL, said:
“By bringing together officers for this collaborative approach, we have uncovered critical intelligence about how content subscription platforms are being weaponized to exploit vulnerable people. Every suspect and victim identification generates immediate investigative leads and strengthens our ability to dismantle these criminal networks and protect those at risk.”
Notes to editors
The operation, led by INTERPOL and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), was supported by Cybercrime Atlas, Diaconía, Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children, Europol, Group-IB, META, S2W, STOP THE TRAFFIK, TikTok.
Participating countries: Germany, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom
