A Grahamstown businessman alleged to be the kingpin of an international online child pornography syndicate was released on R40000 bail late yesterday.
He spent several hours in the magistrate’s court holding cells waiting for the money.
The man, who cannot be named until he has been asked to plead, was arrested on Wednesday afternoon at a guesthouse he runs in the city during a joint raid by South African police child porn investigators and the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
He faces several charges relating to the alleged procurement, manufacture, possession and distribution of child pornography.
The arrest follows a lengthy US investigation into a child pornography website he allegedly administered and is linked to paedophiles in the US, Canada and Europe.
Police yesterday confirmed seven others had been arrested overseas. Plans are believed to be under way to extradite the man to the US to stand trial for alleged online abuse of up to 600 girls over several years.
The man is alleged to have pretended to be a teenage girl on social media sites and chatrooms, using this cover to persuade US girls between eight and 13 to perform sexual acts on themselves which were recorded and streamed on the internet.
National police spokesman Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale said that in a raid at the accused’s house, police found 16 hard drives, a laptop, two video cameras and two cameras.
US authorities began investigating after seven people were arrested for allegedly luring innocent children into pornographic activities.
“The modus operandi of the people using the website was to create a false profile on popular social media websites purporting to be young teenagers in order to lure their victims,” Makgale said.
“Once they got the attention of these children, users, also pretending to be children in the same age brackets as their victims, persuaded their victims to engage in sexually explicit activity. What the victims were not aware of was that they were being secretly recorded by web camera.
“Upon further investigation the FBI team, using the logs of the IP addresses those people had visited, found that the website was being administered from somewhere in South Africa.
“By then about 600 victims aged between eight and 13, the majority of whom are from the United States, had been exploited via these websites.”
Looking disheveled, the man appeared briefly before magistrate Sarel Strauss yesterday, watched by Gauteng family, child protection and sexual offences unit commander Colonel Heila Niemand and FBI officers.
The matter was postponed to April 28.
According to the bail conditions, the man may not access two specified websites, must surrender all passports and report any movements outside the magisterial district to Niemand.
The dramatic arrest caused ripples through Grahamstown as word of the arrest spread like wildfire andis the latest in a series of child porn cases that has rocked the City of Saints in recent years.
A police source yesterday said there had been seven child pornography scandals involving Grahamstown men over the past 15 years.
“We are becoming known as the city of saints, sinners and sex fiends,” the officer said cynically.
Gys Niesing appeared for the defence while Lyle Prins appeared for the state.
R40k bail for porn suspect
He spent several hours in the magistrate’s court holding cells waiting for the money.
The man, who cannot be named until he has been asked to plead, was arrested on Wednesday afternoon at a guesthouse he runs in the city during a joint raid by South African police child porn investigators and the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
He faces several charges relating to the alleged procurement, manufacture, possession and distribution of child pornography.
The arrest follows a lengthy US investigation into a child pornography website he allegedly administered and is linked to paedophiles in the US, Canada and Europe.
Police yesterday confirmed seven others had been arrested overseas. Plans are believed to be under way to extradite the man to the US to stand trial for alleged online abuse of up to 600 girls over several years.
The man is alleged to have pretended to be a teenage girl on social media sites and chatrooms, using this cover to persuade US girls between eight and 13 to perform sexual acts on themselves which were recorded and streamed on the internet.
National police spokesman Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale said that in a raid at the accused’s house, police found 16 hard drives, a laptop, two video cameras and two cameras.
US authorities began investigating after seven people were arrested for allegedly luring innocent children into pornographic activities.
“The modus operandi of the people using the website was to create a false profile on popular social media websites purporting to be young teenagers in order to lure their victims,” Makgale said.
“Once they got the attention of these children, users, also pretending to be children in the same age brackets as their victims, persuaded their victims to engage in sexually explicit activity. What the victims were not aware of was that they were being secretly recorded by web camera.
“Upon further investigation the FBI team, using the logs of the IP addresses those people had visited, found that the website was being administered from somewhere in South Africa.
“By then about 600 victims aged between eight and 13, the majority of whom are from the United States, had been exploited via these websites.”
Looking disheveled, the man appeared briefly before magistrate Sarel Strauss yesterday, watched by Gauteng family, child protection and sexual offences unit commander Colonel Heila Niemand and FBI officers.
The matter was postponed to April 28.
According to the bail conditions, the man may not access two specified websites, must surrender all passports and report any movements outside the magisterial district to Niemand.
The dramatic arrest caused ripples through Grahamstown as word of the arrest spread like wildfire andis the latest in a series of child porn cases that has rocked the City of Saints in recent years.
A police source yesterday said there had been seven child pornography scandals involving Grahamstown men over the past 15 years.
“We are becoming known as the city of saints, sinners and sex fiends,” the officer said cynically.
Gys Niesing appeared for the defence while Lyle Prins appeared for the state.
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