Students from the John Atanassov High School in Sofia would be helping the Interior Ministry (IM) in its fight against cyber crime in Bulgaria, ministry officials said on October 22, as quoted by mediapool.bg.

The initiative was in line with Interior Minister Roumen Petkov’s desire to enlarge the network of non-payroll agents. The school students however, would not act under cover but would contribute by proposing ideas and investigating suspected crimes online. They would also be involved with IM’s new web site cybercrime.bg, which was officially launched on October 22, mediapool.bg said.

The site had been developed by pupils of the high school, supported by the head of the computer crimes’ division of IM’s Chief Directorate for Combating Organised Crime (CDCOC), Yavor Kolev. Kolev was notorious among Internet users in Bulgaria for his actions against file sharing and torrent trackers.

The idea of the new initiative was to have a number of “Internet patrols” among school students reporting to CDCOC on sites having illegal content or other violations. In addition, Kolev said that one of the goals was to keep children informed of the dangers that Internet use could carry.

Students said they wanted to help prevent sexual abuse of children and act against paedophiles on the net. The Internet patrols were also expected to report financial cyber crimes.