By Angus Crawford
BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25749326
International police investigation on child exploitation via internet has led to the arrest of 29 suspects worldwide. The operation was aimed against live online child abuse, where children in developing countries were forced to perform sexual acts in front of a webcam for customers abroad. Another 733 suspects are still under investigation.
The names of these men – including 110 Britons – were passed to police.
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We did not solicit anything unless it was offered to us²
Hans Guyt, Terre des Hommes
When I visited the charity’s operations room – in a warehouse on the outskirts of Amsterdam – I watched as a researcher logged on to a chat room as Sweetie – incredibly life-like but created by a computer.
Within seconds, like sharks, men were circling.
Of the 1,000 men who were willing to pay Sweetie to take off her clothes in front of a webcam, 254 were from the US, followed by 110 from the UK and 103 from India.
Researchers used evidence including profiles on Skype and social media to identify the suspects.
Project director Hans Guyt told a news conference in the Hague on Monday that the crime “requires a new way of policing”.
“The predator won’t come forward. The victim won’t come forward,” he said.
“We identified ourselves as 10-year-old Filipino girls.
“We did not solicit anything unless it was offered to us.”
Worst-case scenario
Terre des Hommes has launched a global campaign to stop “webcam sex tourism”.
The charity identified 1,000 adults from 71 countries who solicited Sweetie
The charity has now handed over its findings to police and has said it will provide authorities with the technology it has developed.But European policing agency Europol has expressed reservations about the findings.
“We believe that criminal investigations using intrusive surveillance measures should be the exclusive responsibility of law enforcement agencies,” spokesman Soren Pedersen told the Reuters news agency.
Andy Baker, of the UK’s National Crime Agency, also said that “tackling child sex abusers is best left to specialist law enforcement agencies”.
But he praised the campaign, saying it had “widened awareness of a global child sex abuse threat”.
“Working with our international law enforcement partners, we will now look at the information being passed on by Terre des Hommes,” he added.
Sweetie will not be used again. She has done her job – showing the predators that they can easily become prey.
