Pervs target kids’ photos
QUEENSLAND police and cyber-security experts have foiled a plan by paedophiles to track down two 12-year-old girls whose innocent pictures they harvested online for “parasite porn”.
The Bulletin has been given unprecedented access to the work Queensland Police special online sex offender squad Task Force Argos and the Office of the E-Safety Commissioner is doing to keep our kids safe online.
An investigation by the Bulletin has uncovered what really happens to the happy snaps we share.
The Bulletin sighted two active paedophile websites yesterday on which users from Australia, New Zealand, the US, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, Finland and France were posting horrific messages over photos of young Austra- lian girls. The photos were uploaded this month and predators on the website were actively seeking more of one of the girls’ images.
louisxvi from New Zealand posted: “Lovely. Is there more of her?”
yogurtu78 from Greece replied: “I hope so. I’m collecting her pics from every social networks (sic).”
roughcaster from the US said: “Does she (or someone like her mother or other family member who posts these) happen to have an Instagram that you could direct me to? You can email me if you don’t want to post it publicly.”
Most alarmingly the site included comments from Australian user “arnsgirl” who said he was a single dad with a profile linked to the paedophile ring.
The pictures on the two sites yesterday were innocent happy snaps of an eight-yearold blonde girl at the beach, water park, swimming pool and happily playing at home. Some were professional modelling shots and others were clearly personal photos.
The Bulletin also obtained an edited transcript of another case in which paedophiles accessed photos and videos of two 12-year-old girls from regional Queensland, harvested off a professional photographer’s social media page.
The images and videos were clear and high-quality, and showed a great deal of background detail, including partial street signs, vehicle registrations and landmarks.
Within just a few hours the paedophiles had narrowed down their search to the Australian town the girls and their families lived in.
The photographer, who posted the photos to Facebook without consent from the families, is under investigation.
The site has now been shut down.