The managers of a website taken down by Dutch police last week following claims it was being used to spread nude photographs of young women have told RTL Nieuws they did not provide a platform for revenge porn.

The website Anon-IB was set up for people to place photos anonymously and, according to Dutch police, was mainly used to spread illicitly-obtained photographs of young women from all over the world.

Some countries, such as the Netherlands and Belgium, had their own sections and there were also special sections for former partners to revenge porn their girlfriends, RTL said.

‘We deny all the charges of revenge porn and child porn,’ the site managers told RTL in a written statement. ‘It was a legal platform to share photographs and we never ignored a police request.’

The seizure of the website followed an investigation lasting more than a year. After it had been taken down, the website hosted a message from the police stating that cyber crime teams had ‘seized the Anon-IB forum in an ongoing investigation concerning criminal offences’.

Arrests

So far five people have been arrested in connection with Anon-IB. Three, from Culemborg, Groningen and Heerlen, were arrested over a period of several months. Two others are also under investigation, Thursday’s police statement said.

RTL Nieuws said earlier this month that some 400 photographs of Dutch women were on the website and were being traded like Pokemon cards.

Dutch justice minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus has said that he wants more to be done about revenge porn and plans to raise the subject in parliament.