2 cyberporn den using Filipino kids raided by NBI

By: Nancy C. Carvajal - 10 years ago

MANILA, Philippines—Two apartments in two Cavite subdivisions suspected to be the “production” site of the live streaming through the Internet of very young children being sexually abused were raided late Friday by agents from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

Ronald Aguto, the head of the NBI’s cybercrime division, said the two houses, located in two subdivisions in Barangay Salawag, Dasmariñas, Cavite, had been placed under surveillance based on information provided by neighbors and informants that they were being used as a the site for live child pornography being beamed overseas, in particular to Greece.

Last month, Greek authorities in Athens arrested five men, including two policemen, for allegedly watching cyberporn supposedly being transmitted live from the Philippines.

The Greek police said the suspects paid $100 to $2,500 to watch the abuse of Filipino children, some as young as six months old, according to the Athens-Macedonia News Agency.

The news agency said the suspects gained access to the website by paying a fee via PayPal, which is how electronic crimes officers managed to track them down after being alerted by Interpol that the website, which had been placed under surveillance, was getting hits in Greece.

Aguto said Greek police had turned over evidence about the Philippine cyber child porn site to the Philippine Embassy in Athens, which has yet to forward the information to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

“We have requested the DFA to forward this evidence to us,” Aguto said.

However, he said, the NBI decided to act on the raw intel it received from its informants and raid the apartments because it might take time for the evidence from Greece to reach the Philippines.

Armed with two separate search warrants issued by a local judge, the NBI agents searched the two apartments but found no ongoing cybersex activity. But they found evidence suggesting that there was cyberpornography going on, Aguto said.

Aguto said the sex den operators could have been tipped off because most of the files in the computers that the raiders seized were found to have been deleted. In the second apartment, the computers were gone.