More cybersex suspects arrested; 4 girls rescued
Authorities in the Philippines have rescued four girls and arrested a mother and two other women for allegedly livestreaming sexually exploitative videos of children to men paying by the minute to watch from the United States.
Three sisters ages 8, 9 and 12, and an 11-year-old found in a separate rescue, are now in a shelter for abused children while the women face prosecution.
The arrests came just two weeks after Filipino authorities raided the home of an American man suspected of similar cybersex crimes, arresting David Timothy Deakin, 53, in his townhouse. During that bust, agents from the National Bureau of Investigation rescued two girls, 10 and 12, who had spent time in Deakin’s home, and made one of the largest seizures of illicit digital content in the Philippines. Dozens of hard drives and a handful of computers must now be analyzed to search for other possible victims, as well as buyers. Deakin denied wrongdoing. The series of arrests and rescues underscore a rapidly growing crime in which children, even toddlers, are made to remove their clothes and touch themselves in obscene ways while adults, often their parents, train video cameras on them in exchange for payment from pedophiles abroad. Police in the Philippines are collaborating with their counterparts in Europe, Australia and the US to investigate and prosecute. The Australian Federal Police and US FBI separately provided Filipino authorities information that led to the arrests of the mother and two other women on May 5, rescuing four girls. They were allegedly making the girls engage in sexual acts while men in Australia and the US watched.