Digital Forensics Dispatch

Largest Contraband Collection Ever Found? Defendant Pleads Guilty, and Oh, There’s Also an Underground Bunker

April 11, 2019

According to the BBC and the Harrogate Advertiser, Geoffrey George Crossland of Harrogate, UK has pleaded guilty to creating over 2,200,000 indecent photographs and videos of children between January 2011 and October 2018.

The raid and eventual criminal charges resulted from a tip from the CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command) indicating that Crossland’s network Internet Protocol address had been associated with the distribution of possible child pornography. An investigation was eventually mounted by the North Yorkshire Police with a search warrant finally being executed on Crossland’s property in October of 2018. Once on the scene, it became clear to officers involved that the search and seizure would be much larger than anticipated as numerous electronic devices were uncovered, over one-hundred devices in total. Then, upon further inspection, an underground bunker complex pieced together with old shipping containers was found on the property as well. Additional materials were identified in the bunker including illegal guns and over 24,000 rounds of ammunition.

During the course of the investigation, over one-hundred plus electronic storage devices were forensically analyzed for possible contraband images and videos, with each of the identified files categorized. At the conclusion of the analysis, there were over 28,600 images and 5,800 videos identified as category A or “the most extreme category.” It was reported that Crossland “pleaded guilty to making 2,204,992 indecent photographs and videos of children.” He was sentenced to twelve years and eight months in jail, as well as being placed on the sex offender registry for ten years.

Luckily, most attorneys will never have to deal with a case involving 2.2 million contraband images and videos, illegal weapons and an underground bunker.

To read more about this story, see the links below:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-47523902

https://www.harrogateadvertiser.co.uk/news/how-harrogate-man-george-crossland-was-caught-with-2-2-million-indecent-images-of-children-and-a-cache-of-illegal-weapons-1-9643486

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