If it's only one I can save today, it'll be a good day.

And that's kind of the story of what we do.

Welcome to the Europol podcast, the official podcast of the EU's Law Enforcement Agency.

In this series, we shine a light on some of the biggest operations

Europol has supported

and how we continue to fight crime.

Protecting Vulnerable Children

This episode contains descriptions of child sexual exploitation.

Listener discretion is advised.

In order to protect their identity, voice

actors have been used for the Europol specialists who took part in this episode.

Today's podcast focuses on one of the most disturbing aspects of crime, namely child sexual exploitation.

As young children have more and more access to the internet, to complete their homework or play

games online, they are becoming more vulnerable to online predators. These predators target children

through social media and can often communicate with them while their parents have no idea what is going on.

To tackle this issue, there are dedicated police units across Europe.

They collaborate with Europol's child sexual exploitation team to target predators and, most importantly, to save children.

The gratification of finding a child and safeguarding a child.

That's why we do it.

And sometimes it takes us weeks to do that,

to determine the location or the identity of a victim.

But the day that you do find a child and you do intervene, that's the best day. That's why you've been working all those weeks.

...