Police in Nuremberg said the man, who has no previous criminal record, sexually abused boys and girls between the ages of five and 11 in several cities across Bavaria.

Police first picked up the man’s trail this summer after he exposed himself in front of an eight-year-old girl in the city of Erfurt. She told friends about the incident and the authorities got involved. In August, the man was arrested. Investigators then connected him to a previous case in Fürth in which a seven-year-old girl was abused.

“The perpetrator lured the children either with pornographic pictures or under some other pretense into a basement and then performed sexual acts on them or with himself,” police said in a statement.

Using DNA samples, investigators were then able to connect the man to another nine abuse cases that police were following.

In his confession, the man admitted to a total of 52 abuse cases involving 75 children, some of which had not even been reported. The abuse took place in the Nuremberg region, as well as in the cities of Fürth, Erlangen, München, Augsburg und Regensburg.