MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Spanish police have arrested an
18-year-old for allegedly trying to sell nude photographs of his 11-year-old sister in exchange for a car, police told CNN on Wednesday.
The teenager did not get the car, but he did post several nude photographs of his sister online as a sample of what he could offer to the potential buyer, a 25-year-old man who has also been arrested, a police inspector said.
"Both suspects testified that they had discussed exchanging the nude photographs of the girl for a car," said the inspector, who declined to be identified by name.
The teenager, arrested Friday in the northern city of Pamplona, his hometown, is no longer living with his younger sister, the inspector said.
The case began last year in the nearby city of Santander when a woman told police that her young daughter -- not the 11-year-old -- had been tricked into posting nude photographs of herself online, said a Spanish national police statement issued in Pamplona on Wednesday.
Police soon arrested the 25-year-old man in Santander for suspected child pornography. He allegedly entered online social networking sites posing as a young girl, aiming to persuade girls to post nude photographs of themselves, the police statement said.
The 25-year-old, unemployed and from a middle-class family, was arrested November 18, 2008. Since then, police have investigated numerous other photographs found on his computer files, said the inspector, who heads the organized crime unit in Santander.
An Internet and computer trace of some of the nude photographs led to the computer in Pamplona used by the 18-year-old, who had met the 25-year-old in an online chat session, the police statement said.
The 18-year-old, identified only by his initials J.R.A., faces charges of prostitution and corruption of minors. He has been released from custody on condition that he appear before judicial authorities when cited, the statement said.
The police inspector, a woman, said the case serves as a warning to young girls to be careful in online sessions and not to take the identities of other participants at face value.
Police are investigating the nude photographs of 50 other young girls found on the computer of the 25-year-old suspect, the inspector said.
Police think the 25-year-old used them for his own purposes, and there is no evidence to date that he was trying to market the child pornography online, the inspector said.
Police did not identify the 25-year-old suspect by name.
Spanish authorities have conducted a series of raids in recent years against child pornography rings, often with the assistance of overseas law enforcement agencies.
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