Cape Town - Four suspected child pornographers – one of them from Cape Town – have been arrested by South African police investigating links to an international child pornography ring.
Three middle-aged men and a woman were arrested when police from the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) unit swooped on suspects in Cape Town and Pretoria this week .
The raids followed four arrests in Plettenberg Bay, Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth earlier this year, when police found, among other things, material showing the abuse, rape and apparent murder of newborn babies.
The latest arrests were on charges of producing and distributing pornography, said national police spokesman Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo.
Among those held was a 47-year-old man from Fish Hoek, who works as a broker. He was arrested on Tuesday night.
While the charges relating to the production of pornography suggested that local children might have been harmed, Naidoo declined to confirm this.
The investigation was linked to arrests made in January and April and had proven links with arrests made by Belgian police, Naidoo confirmed.
He said that three of the suspects – two men and a woman – were arrested in Hercules in Pretoria.
The Cape Town suspect was being held at the Fish Hoek police station pending his first appearance in the Simon’s Town Magistrates Court.
The Pretoria suspects, whose ages range from 41 to 56, appeared in Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
Their case was postponed until Friday for a bail application, Naidoo said. They have been remanded in custody.
“These latest arrests, like others before, have a global connection to them.
“All of these suspects’ alleged shenanigans were brought to the attention of the South African Police Service’s FCS units after police authorities in Antwerp, Belgium, arrested one of their residents for the production, possession and facilitation of child pornographic images that depict minors or where minors are being used for these purposes.
“This suspect was found to have 219 contacts in his user accounts. That was in October 2014.
“Further investigations by the Belgian authorities pointed them to South Africa.”
Naidoo said the police had not been surprised by the large network of contacts, as consumers of child pornography often shared images of child abuse with each other wherever they were in the world over the internet.
“During the arrests in Pretoria and Cape Town, police also confiscated six cellphones, four desktops, a laptop and three USBs,” Naidoo said.
The team is expecting to make more arrests soon.
An early arrest was made in January, when police acted on information and arrested a man in Plettenberg Bay.
Since then a man in Grahamstown and a couple in Port Elizabeth were arrested in April.
At the same time, a separate investigation into a Grahamstown-based man identified as a kingpin in the child pornography network revealed thousands of previously unknown victims.
Naidoo said he did not wish to provide too much detail of the police’s investigation, as it could harm the probe.
“We would prefer to have the detail unfold in court and as we make further arrests,” he said. “The charges relate to the production and distribution of pornographic material. I cannot yet say whether local children were involved.”
Cape Argus