Police in Senegal have arrested 14 suspects and dismantled a paedophile network operating across Senegal and France, authorities said Sunday.
Investigators described a major coordinated operation targeting a transnational criminal group whose activities stretched between Dakar and northern France.
All 14 suspects, all Senegalese nationals, appeared before a judge on Friday to face a catalogue of grave criminal charges.
Those charges include organised paedophilia, pimping, rape of children under 15, sodomy, and deliberate transmission of HIV/AIDS.
Police said the network, active since 2017, forced young boys into unprotected and filmed sexual acts with men, many reportedly HIV-positive.
Four suspects allegedly acted on the instructions of a French national arrested in northern France in April 2025, receiving money transfers in return.
Search operations were carried out across several Dakar neighbourhoods and in Kaolack, about 200 kilometres southeast, as authorities widened the investigation.