Spanish Pedophile Ring Leader Sentenced to 240 Years for Child Abuse and Pornography

Jean-Luc Aschbacher and his accomplice, Christian Arson, actively sought by the Spanish justice system for more than a year and a half, were arrested in southern France in May 2021. The prosecution requested more than 1,000 years in prison against the main defendant and more than 200 years against his accomplice. During the trial held on August 25, the Tarragona judge finally sentenced Aschbacher to 240 years in prison for the crimes of sexual abuse of minors, child pornography and membership in a criminal organization. Arson, his accomplice, was sentenced to 19 years in prison for contributing to the production and distribution of child pornography.

The criminal network, composed of at least seven pedophiles, recruited minors aged 11 to 16 from disadvantaged backgrounds in Morocco, Spain (Tortosa, Barcelona, Valencia), the Czech Republic, Thailand and other countries, to whom it gave money or drugs to produce pornographic photos and videos that it distributed worldwide. In total, more than 100 children were victims of these abuses and about a thousand pornographic images and videos were detected, according to RTVE.

The network carried out its activities for more than 15 years without being disturbed, under the cover of the "Productos Aschbacher" company. In 2015, the Mossos d’Esquadra arrested the seven members of the network, who then benefited from provisional release after a few months in detention. Aschbacher, Arson and Youness En Naciri (victim and later perpetrator, still wanted) escaped before the trial held at the Tarragona court in 2019. The four other members of the network have already been sentenced to sentences ranging from 20 to 132 years in prison during the 2019 trial.