SAPS ARRESTS THREE MORE CHILD ONLINE SEXUAL PREDATORS


23 Jan 2024:  SAPS ARRESTS THREE MORE CHILD ONLINE SEXUAL PREDATORS

Western Cape, 23 January 2024: A man who posed as a teenager to lure under age girls to a chat group where child pornography was distributed and shared is amongst three Child Online Sexual predators that have been arrested in a joint operation by the SAPS Serial and Electronic Crime Investigations (SECI)unit and the USA Department of Homelands Security in the past week.

This brings to total the number of Child Online Sexual Predators that have been arrested since November to seven.

The other four were arrested in November last year. Three were arrested in Gauteng and one in KwaZulu-Natal.

These arrests form part of an international operation to trace manufacturers, users, and distributors of child pornography.

The three suspects were arrested in Worcester, Kraaifontein and Mitchell’s Plain.

A 53-year-old man from Worcester was the first to be arrested on Wednesday, 17 January 2024. He has so far been found with 95 000 images and 6000 videos of child pornography. He faces a charge of accessing, distributing and possession of child pornography.

The second suspect, a 40-year-old man was arrested in Kraaifontein on Thursday, 18 January 2024. In his possession, he was found with more than 149 000 pictures of child pornography as well as more than 5000 videos. He was found in possession of two unlicensed firearms and various calibre of ammunition, as well as 9 snakes of which three did not have a permit. He is facing charges of possession of illegal firearms and ammunition, possession, distribution and accessing of child pornography.

A 32-year-old man from Mitchell’s Plan was the third suspect to be arrested on Friday, 19th January 2024. He was found to be chatting and luring under age girls on chat group where nude pictures where exchanged.

All suspects appeared before various courts such as Worcester, Kraaifontein and Mitchells Plain Magistrate’s Court where their cases were postponed for further investigation.

This operation would not have been a successful without the following role players, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) of WC, NPA, Cape Nature, and SPCA.

Below are a few tips for parents

▶ Monitor the devices and social media accounts of your children to ensure they don’t fall prey to such crimes.

▶ Install parental control software and apps that can identify and block harmful content in chats, forms and other internet communication tools.

▶ Advise children not to respond to messages or emails from strangers.

▶ Never upload sexually suggestive images of yourself to the internet.

▶ Never reveal personal information about yourself, including where you stay or which school you go to, to an online friend.

▶ Never agree to meet a stranger in private.

▶ Inform an adult or call 0860010111 to report any incident that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Media enquiries; Brigadier Athlenda Mathe 0820408808

Luke Lamprecht answered some questions from the Media on the subject:

This is the second arrest of child predators in SA since November, what do you think should be done to protect children from online child predators?

PG means parental guidance and not parent gone.

Your child’s right to privacy never supersedes your responsibility to protect them.

We secure our homes from intruders, do the same on your children’s phones.

  • Give the police more resources and funding. The SAPS Serial and Electronic Crime Investigations (SECI) unit needs to expand and have more personnel and resources for travel, equipment and whatever else they need. Training for everyday police, so they know who to refer these matters to.
  • The justice system, being prosecutors and magistrates, must know how to prosecute and sentence these offenders effectively.
  • Parents must be more aware and PRESENT. It’s too easy to give your child a device and let them carry on by themselves.

Follow the guidelines as given in the article.

▶ Monitor the devices and social media accounts of your children to ensure they don’t fall prey to such crimes.

▶ Install parental control software and apps that can identify and block harmful content in chats, forms and other internet communication tools.

▶ Advise children not to respond to messages or emails from strangers.

▶ Never upload sexually suggestive images of yourself to the internet.

▶ Never reveal personal information about yourself, including where you stay or which school you go to, to an online friend.

▶ Never agree to meet a stranger in private.

With more children with access to the internet and sometimes unsupervised, are more children becoming of the online predators?

Statistics are largely unknown, because it’s such a vast unregulated problem – it would be wise to suppose it will increase. Where there is a device in a child’s hand, there may very well be a predator.

There is undoubtedly an increase in adolescents becoming “sex pests” with simple examples like sending “dick pics” without the consent of the girl to receive them and is the equivalent of “flashing” ie exhibitionism. The other issue I see commonly is relentless harassment of girls online to send images and the boys not taking no for an answer, so the harassment is very severe. Largely this seems to be driven by their seemingly addictive pornography consumption.

Have you come across any children that have been forced to be part of these child pornography rings in SA? Is enough work being done to crackdown on predators?

We are aware of a ring of predators – educators – sharing the details of child victims. There are many forms of pornography rings and it’s a global problem. So something you see here could have been manufactured in Russia, for instance. And globally, police and specialised units are trying to catch the offenders, but it’s like a hydra – if you cut off one head, seven more appear.

There is rampant sextortion in Johannesburg specifically. Child pornography rings are using “sockpuppets” to “catfish” teen boys online. They seem to target boys in elite schools. They get the boys to send nudes and then ask them to send more, based on a “menu” of sexual images and videos they request. If the boys refuse they threaten to post the “self-generated” image of them nude on Instagram. The aim is to get images and videos of boys doing sexual things to sell online.

And remember…. Every image is a Crime Scene