Police arrest five in Serbia's Operation Armageddon
Five people were detained in five cities in the latest wave of Operation Armageddon. They allegedly posed online as girls aged 11 and 12 and traded material through Telegram.
Five people were arrested in five Serbian cities on Wednesday in the latest wave of Operation Armageddon. They are charged with displaying, obtaining and possessing pornographic material and with exploiting a minor for pornography. None of them has been convicted.
The arrests were made by the Service for Combating High-Tech Crime, part of the Interior Ministry (MUP), working with the Belgrade city police department and the departments in Valjevo, Novi Sad, Sremska Mitrovica and Nis. The operation was ordered by the Special Department for Combating High-Tech Crime.
Those detained are:
- I. M., born 1974, from Belgrade
- V. L., born 1977, from Valjevo
- B. L., born 1989, from Novi Sad
- D. O., born 1967, from Sremska Mitrovica
- S. Dj., born 2002, from Nis
Thirty-five years separate the oldest suspect from the youngest. That gap points to users of the same channels rather than to a circle of peers.
Fake profiles of 11 and 12 year old girls
Police suspect the five spent a long period downloading, storing and sharing material produced through the sexual exploitation of children. On social networks and messaging apps they set up fake accounts presenting themselves as girls aged 11 and 12.
Posing as children, investigators say, they contacted minors and demanded sexual photographs and videos from them. The material was then traded over Telegram and specialised chat applications.
Searches of the apartments and other premises used by the suspects turned up computers and computer equipment. Photographs and video recordings produced through the sexual exploitation of children were found on those devices. The seized equipment now goes to forensic examination, which will determine how many child victims can be identified.
The Interior Ministry said in its statement that “the safety of children is an absolute priority in the work of the Service for Combating High-Tech Crime”. The ministry added that work on tracing and arresting offenders will continue through cooperation with institutions in Serbia and abroad.
How many arrests came before this wave?
This is not the first round of the same operation. We reported on the previous one on June 23, 2026, when six people were arrested in six cities: Belgrade, Novi Sad, Zrenjanin, Nis, Smederevo and Bor. Armageddon was described then as part of Europol’s Operation Python, and the method was identical, fake profiles of girls aged 11 and 12.
With Wednesday’s arrests, the two waves have brought in eleven people in a little over a month. Across 2025 and 2026 police have arrested 75 people suspected of crimes against children in the digital environment, close to one arrest a week over less than two years.
The ministry says many of those cases put children directly at risk, because online predators moved on to direct contact with their victims. The method keeps repeating, and so does what investigators tell parents: an account that claims to belong to a child does not have to belong to a child.
