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Child abuse Malaga child abuse: young man assaults underage cousin and films paedophile contentProvincial Court convicts 20-year-old after US agency NCMEC tracks digital trail to Costa del Sol home
Wednesday, 4 March 2026, 11:44
The provincial court of Malaga has sentenced a young man to ten years in prison for sexually abusing his underage cousin and uploading the recorded material to an online cloud.
The first incident happened in December 2021, when the defendant was still underage himself. For this reason, the provincial court has only taken into consideration the incidents that happened after he turned 18.
The abuse happened when the victim was 12 to 13 years old. He didn't live in Spain, but he would often spend time at his cousin's family home when visiting, especially around Christmas.
The suspect would take advantage of the fact that the boy "lacked the capacity to understand or react". Despite initial resistance, the boy would eventially agree because he "respected his older cousin", as the ruling states.
The court has proven five episodes of abuse. The defendant recorded and uploaded them to an online cloud, without the victim's knowledge or consent.
The emotional burden led the victim to miss a year and seven months from school, during which time he was undergoing a psychiatric treatment. The extent of the trauma eventually required that he receive treatment at a youth centre.
The investigation
The investigation started in 2023 when US non-profit organisation National Center for Missing and Exploited Children detected that someone had posted more than 40 videos and images of paedophile content online.
The digital trail led them to report the case to the Spanish National Police, who then traced the content to the suspect's house in Malaga. They quickly identified him with the help of other photos in the online storage cloud he used, which contained his identity document and profile photo.
The folder also contained pornographic content of paedophile nature that he had previously downloaded.
The court could not prove whether he had shared or exchanged them online. The sentence convicts him of continuous child abuse and production and possession of child pornography, but not distribution.
The sentence includes ten years and one day in prison, as well as a restraining order for a decade. The defendant can also not perform any profession, trade or activity, whether paid or unpaid, that involves regular and direct contact with minors for 14 years.
In addition, the court has established that he must serve six years of probation and compensate the victim 20,000 euros for the moral and psychological damage.