Police sources have confirmed the force is investigating information on Maltese IRC (Internet Relay Chat) chat rooms that have been inundated by paedophiles plying links to child pornographic chat rooms where photographs of young girls engaging in various forms of sexual activity are exchanged.

This newspaper broke the story last Sunday, when whistleblower Mr Borg (a pseudonym given to the whistleblower to protect his identity) handed this newsroom a dossier of activity seen on the chat rooms.

Police sources also confirmed that the recent arrests of five Maltese men, who were arraigned in court on charges relating to sexual activity with underage persons, child pornography and inducing under-aged persons into prostitution, are not related to this case.

It was back in October of last year that Mr Borg noticed Maltese internet chat rooms had begun being used by paedophiles who regularly posted links to channels sharing pornographic material involving children. When he brought the matter to the attention of chat room’s administrators, he was told not to interfere and to “Shut the f**k up.”

The administrators of one of these chat rooms now seem to have gone into panic mode, banning Mr Borg from the channel. Mr Borg told this newsroom that his IP address to the Maltese IRC channel was banned just one hour after the story on the chat rooms was uploaded to www.independent.com.mt last Sunday morning. 

He told this newsroom that the administrators knew he was the one who had spoken to this newspaper, even though the pseudonym used in the article differs from the username he used for the chat room, because he had long been complaining to the channel administrators of the worrying links being posted to child-porn related chat rooms.

He revealed that the ‘owner’ of one of the chat rooms is Maltese-English, living in the UK. The chief operator, and the person Mr Borg describes as the second in command of that channel, is Maltese. As for the second Maltese channel plying similar child pornographic material, the owner is unknown.

The second Maltese chat room in question has been changed from being an open to the general public chat room to a by invitation only, but it is not known if this occurred before or after the news story broke last Sunday.