The Finnish Snapchat abuse investigation has identified 364 children as suspected victims in a nationwide online sexual abuse case, after Finland’s Inland Finland Police Department (Sisä-Suomen poliisilaitos) said on 16 December 2025 that it is close to completing a preliminary investigation opened in late 2022. Police said a 27-year-old Finnish man is suspected of having contacted children on Snapchat and persuaded them to send sexualised images and videos, with the alleged offences occurring between 2019 and 2022.
Police describe an online pattern centred on Snapchat
In its public update, the police said the suspect is believed to have met children on the messaging app Snapchat and asked them to take and send photos or videos of themselves while partially clothed or nude. Investigators said he is also suspected of encouraging children to record sexual acts and send the material to him.
The police have not publicly identified the suspect. The case is being handled by the Inland Finland police district, but the suspected victims come from across Finland.
The scale of the digital evidence
Police said the investigation began in late 2022 after a device search in a separate case uncovered a large amount of sexualised material on the suspect’s mobile phone. Investigators reported finding hundreds of thousands of individual files, including thousands of videos and images depicting unidentified children.
A central task, police said, has been identifying the children shown in the files and documenting the suspected offences against each victim. That process took around two years. The police said they have now completed the preliminary investigation relating to 364 identified children, while several hundred children pictured in the seized material remain unidentified.
What is known about the victims
The police said the identified children were 9–15 years old at the time of the suspected offences and are from different parts of Finland, “from Lapland to Helsinki”, according to reporting by Finnish broadcaster Yle.
Yle’s English-language reporting described the victims as boys, while Finnish-language reporting has noted that police have not publicly commented on the victims’ gender. What is confirmed by the police is that the victims were minors and that the suspected offences were committed online.
Suspected offences under investigation
According to Yle, investigators suspect 265 counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, 98 counts of sexual abuse of a child, and one count of distributing an indecent image. These figures reflect the current state of the investigation and can change as prosecutors review the file.
Yle also reported that the suspect has admitted to “some crimes” during questioning and has a prior conviction for sexual offences against minors.
Why Snapchat and “disappearing messages” matter in cases like this
Investigators told Yle that many children believed what they sent on Snapchat would automatically disappear within 24 hours and therefore could not be saved or reused. Law enforcement agencies across Europe have repeatedly warned that so-called disappearing messages can create a false sense of safety: recipients can still capture images, save files or move content off-platform.
For police, this can also complicate victim identification and evidence mapping. In this case, investigators described a heavy workload involving digital forensic analysis and victim tracing across multiple regions.
The broader Nordic challenge: online grooming and sexual extortion
The Finnish case arrives as Nordic authorities continue to highlight a wider problem: online services used for grooming, coercion and, in some cases, sexual extortion. Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (Keskusrikospoliisi, KRP) has warned that reports of sexual extortion involving minors have risen sharply in recent years, and that boys make up the vast majority of reported victims in recorded cases.
While the Inland Finland police update does not focus on extortion, the overlap in methods is important for prevention efforts: accounts posing as peers or young women, rapid escalation into sexualised requests, and pressure that makes it difficult for a child to disengage.
What happens next in the criminal process
The Inland Finland police said the preliminary investigation is close to being completed. Finnish authorities have not announced a trial date, and prosecutors will still need to review the file and decide on charges.
Large-scale cases involving digital evidence often take time to process because each suspected offence must be legally assessed and linked to an identified victim. The police’s public update underlines that several hundred potential victims remain unidentified, suggesting that investigative work may continue even after the main file is transferred to prosecutors.
A wider EU context: child protection rules and privacy safeguards
The case also sits within a wider European debate on how to prevent online child sexual abuse while protecting privacy and cybersecurity. On 26 November 2025, EU member states agreed the Council’s negotiating position on a draft regulation aimed at preventing and combating online child sexual abuse, including provisions on risk assessment and the creation of an EU Centre on Child Sexual Abuse.
The Council position would also extend a temporary exemption that currently allows providers to voluntarily scan their services for known child sexual abuse material and report it to authorities. Negotiations with the European Parliament are expected to determine the final shape of the law and how it balances child protection, encryption and fundamental rights.
What remains unclear
Key details have not been made public. Police have not said how the suspect first came to their attention beyond the discovery of material during a separate investigation, nor have they indicated whether other suspects are being investigated or whether additional platforms played a role.
What is clear is the scale: police say 364 victims have been identified, and that several hundred more children depicted in seized files remain unidentified. For Finland, the investigation highlights both the reach of online abuse and the practical difficulties of protecting children on fast-changing platforms used daily by young people.
