Web child abuse ring busted in Philippines
Print Edition
Child abuse investigators in Britain, the United States and Australia have dismantled an organized crime group that streamed live webcam footage of child sexual abuse from the Philippines for paying viewers around the world.
An international investigation broke up the ring, which abused impoverished children as young as six years old, Britain’s National Crime Agency said yesterday. Authorities made 29 arrests, including 11 people in the Philippines who had facilitated the crime. Some were members of the children’s families.
Police describe the use of webcams to stream live child abuse — especially from developing countries — as a “significant and emerging threat.”
“This investigation has identified some extremely dangerous child sexual offenders who believed paying for children to be abused to order was something they could get away with,” said Andy Baker, the deputy director of the agency’s command for child protection.
“Being thousands of miles away makes no difference to their guilt. In my mind they are just as responsible for the abuse of these children as the contact abusers overseas.”
The investigation began in 2012 after a routine police visit to Timothy Ford, a registered sex offender in Britain. Police found a number of indecent videos on his computer and contacted child abuse investigators, touching off a global investigation.
UK, Australian and US authorities worked together on the case with the International Justice Mission, a non-governmental group. Together, the agencies presented their data to authorities in the Philippines to identify offenders and victims.
The investigation, codenamed Operation Endeavour, spanned 12 countries including France, Germany, Switzerland and Canada. Five people have been convicted in the UK, including Ford, who was sentenced last March to eight and a half years in prison.
The agency said Ford paid to watch live abuse and planned to move to the Philippines to set up an Internet cafe.
Ford and another man, Thomas Owen, had discussed traveling to the Philippines.
Owen, who was found with nearly 4 million indecent images of children, was sentenced last July to seven years in prison.
Authorities in the Philippines issued three search warrants in 2012, and 15 children aged between 6 and 15 were rescued and placed in the custody of social welfare services.
Operation Endeavour has triggered three other investigations into the issue of live child abuse online. British authorities say those probes have identified 733 suspects internationally.
Stephanie McCourt of Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center, part of the National Crime Agency, told the BBC that pedophiles should know that the Internet isn’t a “safe place for them.”
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