Carlo Petersen
POLICE expect to break even more ground in exposing an international porn ring after a Cape Town man was one of four who were arrested this week.
All four suspects have been remanded after appearing in court for the alleged possession and distribution of child porn.
National police spokesperson Vishnu Naidoo said a 47-year-old man from Fish Hoek who works as a broker was arrested on Tuesday night.
Two other men and a woman had been arrested earlier on Tuesday in Hercules, Pretoria.
Four other arrests had been made earlier this year in Plettenberg Bay, Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth, where police found material showing newborn babies being abused, raped and murdered.
Naidoo said the arrests were part of an ongoing probe into child pornography rings in South Africa.
Naidoo expected there to be more arrests.
“All of them have been arrested for possession and distribution of child porn. A team of specialised detectives from the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit (FCS) from Gauteng made the arrests,” Naidoo said. He said the Pretoria suspects were aged from 41 to 56 and appeared in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.
Their case has been postponed to today for a bail application and they have been remanded in custody.
He said the Cape Town man is due in court again next Thursday and has requested time to get legal assistance.
As the cases are related to alleged sexual offences the accused cannot be named until they plead.
The suspects were brought to the attention of police after Antwerp police authorities in Belgium arrested a resident there for production and |possession of child pornographic images.
“This suspect was found to be having 219 contacts in his user accounts. That was in October 2014. Further investigations by the Belgian authorities pointed them to South Africa.
Police also confiscated six cellphones, four desktop computers, a laptop and three USBs during the raids in Cape Town and Pretoria.