Naked body: how pedophiles hunt for explicit photos of children on social networks
On January 14, the Smolninsky District Court of St. Petersburg extended the detention of actor Vladimir Kolganov. He is suspected of producing and distributing child pornography. The star of the TV series "Streets of Broken Lanterns" was arrested in November 2025 as part of cooperation with Interpol — according to Izvestia, it was this structure that discovered photos of the actor's children on porn resources on the darknet. It is possible that hunters for explicit photos downloaded them from Kolganov's page on social networks. According to research, up to half of the materials posted on pedophile resources are initially published by parents of children in their accounts. How pedophiles hunt for explicit photos on social networks, how such content is detected by law enforcement officers, and what threatens parents who have become unwitting accomplices of perverts.
Vladimir Kolganov's arrest has been extended
Actor Vladimir Kolganov, known, in particular, for the TV series "Streets of Broken Lanterns" and "Secrets of the Investigation", will stay in jail at least until February 18, 2026. This decision was made on January 14 by the Smolninsky District Court of St. Petersburg. According to investigators, Kolganov and his friend Evgeny Kirillov produced and distributed pornographic materials involving minors on a social network no later than 2015.
As Izvestia found out, shortly before Kolganov's detention (it happened in November 2025), Europol and Interpol conducted a large-scale operation VIDTF17. Her goal was to identify underage victims of sexual exploitation from photographs on the websites of pedophiles on the darknet.
27 experts from 22 countries participated in the examination. As a result, 51 children were identified. As a result of the operation, 213 orientations were sent to the authorities of different countries for further investigation. It is likely that the criminal case against Vladimir Kolganov was initiated based on the results of this particular operation.
The reason for the actor's detention could be photos of his young children, which he posted on social networks in 2015, a source familiar with the situation told Izvestia. According to his assumption, these images were then downloaded by "hunters" for explicit children's content and posted on specialized resources on the darknet. There they attracted the attention of Interpol, and were included in the package of materials that were examined as part of Operation VIDTF17.
Thus, our interlocutor believes, a precedent is being set when parents who post explicit "family" content on the Internet and are unaware of the risks of these actions if their photos are discovered by hunters for children's nude pictures may be under threat of criminal prosecution.
Having studied the pages of Vladimir Kolganov's accounts on social networks, Izvestia correspondents drew attention to several rather explicit photos and videos with the actor's children, which were dated exactly in 2015 and could theoretically become a reason to launch criminal prosecution. At the time of publication, almost all of these materials had been deleted.
The investigative authorities do not report how materials from Vladimir Kolganov's personal page got to thematic pedophile sites on the darknet. The actor's relatives did not respond to Izvestia's questions, and his lawyer also declined to comment.
Up to 10 years in prison
The case of Vladimir Kolganov cannot be called a typical story of exposing a figure in the underground porn industry, as the latter are characterized by deep conspiracy. The lion's share of traffic passes through specialized forums on the darknet, which guarantees anonymity, or in private chats and groups on social networks and messengers.
Obviously, it is not accepted among porn barons to distribute child pornography on their open personal pages. While Kolganov has not even attempted to remove potentially dangerous content from his social networks in 10 years.
Alexander Kuryanov & Partners law Firm told Izvestia that posting explicit materials online could lead to criminal proceedings against parents under Article 242.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, "Production and trafficking of materials or objects with pornographic images of minors," punishable by up to 10 years in prison. At the same time, the mere fact of publication does not mean that the parents are committing a crime.
— These actions must be committed specifically for the purpose of distributing or publicly displaying pornography. Basically, this is determined either by the subject of the primary source resource, or by the fact that parents receive remuneration for it in some format," lawyer Ilya Citrenko told Izvestia. — Also, in such cases, an examination of the material is always carried out, in which the expert comes to the conclusion whether pornography is present in the material based on the context of the photo and video material and the shooting conditions.
Hunting for baby photos
Public and human rights organizations are increasingly paying attention to the problem of children's photos from social networks entering the galleries of pedophiles. According to the French Children's Fund, half of the materials posted on pedophile resources were originally published by parents of children on their social media pages.
Judging by the discussions on the forums of pedophiles on the Darknet, the most popular hunting site is Instagram (the social network belongs to the Meta corporation, which is listed as extremist in Russia and banned). Predators value the resource not only for its abundance of content, but also for advanced algorithms that allow them to receive streams of photos and videos without showing suspicious activity on the part of the user.
The Izvestia correspondent was able to easily visit relevant resources both in the "white" segment of the Internet and on the darknet, and made sure that photos from existing accounts in Russian social networks could actually be found there. At the same time, on their private forums, pedophiles brag about how they manage to use social media algorithms to get the content they are interested in. So, one user said that he set up his Instagram so that he easily monitors "1800 accounts" and each of them belongs to "little girls who regularly post posts." Moreover, he is sure that he is not risking anything, because he does not even enter search queries in order to see these photos.
Most often, perverts monitor the accounts of children who are engaged in dancing, gymnastics, and modeling. Hunters of such photos advise paying attention, among other things, to the Russian segment of international social networks and video hosting sites. In November 2025, 35,000 views with obscene comments on relevant forums were received, for example, by a video report on children's sports competitions in one of the Russian regions. "26 minutes. Thank you, YouTube algorithm," the perverts wrote about this.
Predators also search for "sharp" content using special hashtags. Advanced stalkers use artificial intelligence technologies. In 2022, the PimEyes image search service was at the center of the scandal, which, according to a number of Western media, could be used to detect "potentially explicit" photos of children. Against the background of the accusations, the creators of the service announced a decrease in the search engine's power.
Igor Ashmanov, a member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, an expert in the field of Internet security, believes that against the background of the growing technical capabilities of stalkers, posting any photos of children on social networks entails significant risks.
— There are a lot of predators online. Due to the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies, they have the opportunity to search in semi—automatic mode," Ashmanov told Izvestia. — It is forbidden not only to post photos of children on the Internet, but it is high time to clean up what was published earlier. There is an opinion that if a pedophile just looks at pictures, then he is harmless, but over time some of them have a desire to get to a real child. If you post a photo, then the child can already be identified by geography, determine which school he attends, and find out his first and last name.
Under the hood of Interpol
Criminal trials related to the production and distribution of child pornography are not uncommon. According to the Legal Information Agency, in 2024, Russian courts handed down 258 convictions under articles of the Criminal Code related to the production and trafficking of child pornography.
Sometimes, the reason for initiating cases is precisely the cooperation of Russian law enforcement officers with Interpol. For example, in February 2025, a 38-year-old child pornography dealer was detained in the Ryazan region. Brazilian colleagues tipped off the suspect to the Interior Ministry, and during searches, a computer with hundreds of gigabytes of prohibited materials was seized from the detainee.
In recent years, to make it difficult to identify victims using artificial intelligence algorithms, attackers tend to hide the faces of minors and any artifacts that allow them to geolocate photos and videos. Interpol experts have to identify victims by details of clothing (for example, school vests of specific educational institutions).
At the same time, Interpol is rapidly increasing its technical capabilities to search for pedophile content and its distributors. In early 2024, the organization announced a tender for the development of a new generation ICSE database using AI and machine learning technology.
According to the Interpol General Secretariat, the ICSE database currently contains more than six million images and videos seized by law enforcement agencies in 72 countries.
—The member countries decide for themselves which materials they upload to the database,— Interpol spokesman Ruben Lim explained to Izvestia. — But any content must meet a number of criteria. It must depict a real person (drawings, animations, and content created using artificial intelligence are excluded). It should depict a child under the age of 18 and clearly show sexual activity or predominantly depict the child's genitals.
As our interlocutor emphasized, Interpol recommends that member countries monitor not only relevant pedophile forums, but also include publicly available photos and videos from social networks in the ICSE database. According to Interpol, this can increase the effectiveness of measures taken to counteract the sexual exploitation of children.
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