How do the police track down live-streaming pedophiles?

This is the trial of horror. That of a 59-year-old man, accused of having ordered and watched, live on the Internet, hundreds of rapes and sexual assaults of children in the Philippines. The Paris Assize Court will plunge into darkness to judge, from this Tuesday, this graphic designer who has notably worked for the Pixar studios or for Disney. Behind his computer screen, he gave his orders to women in the Philippines, paid to make his most brutal fantasies come true with very young girls. A lover of scenes as sadistic as they are perverse, the man felt pleasure watching the victims, aged 2 to 15, being abused and tortured, as investigations by the judicial police revealed.

In November 2019, Europol reported to OCRVP investigators that it had identified a man who was carrying out suspicious fund transfers to the Philippines. This Southeast Asian country, one of the poorest in the world, is particularly affected by the so-called “live-streaming” phenomenon, which has existed since 2012.

“This activity in full development, in particular due to the complexity of sex tourism induced by the health crisis and travel restrictions, consists of the sexual exploitation of a child, who is subjected to sexual abuse ordered remotely by Western nationals », summarizes the investigating judge in her indictment order, consulted by 20 Minutes.

No typical profile

How to track down these “customers”? “We can have assistance from other countries or other services, such as Europol. Sometimes it is Tracfin which gives us the information following exchanges of funds with the Philippines,” explains 20 Minutes a police source. The first contacts between sponsors and performers are established on sexualized chat sites or social networks. They then communicate via Skype or WhatsApp to negotiate the price, the age of the victims, and the abuse inflicted. “They often go through encrypted networks, VPNs, routers, it complicates our work. And they don’t necessarily exchange photos with others; they are seriously ill people who have this sordid desire to watch live. They do not take any direct risks, feel untouchable, have the impression of minimizing the seriousness of the facts. For them it’s virtual, but there are real victims,” our source continues.

The man is suspected by the courts of having spent more than 50,000 euros in this activity, which corresponds to around a thousand videos ordered. The police notice that there is no typical profile among the perpetrators. “It can be any social profile, any age. These are often people who are experiencing sexual or emotional degeneration, but not only that. » According to this good connoisseur of the case, the local police officers are overwhelmed by the phenomenon. “They do what they can, which is to say not much. Fortunately, there are foreign services which are well established there, the Americans, the English, but especially the Australians which are close. They have branches on site that help us. Sometimes they share information with us that might interest us. »

Heavier sentences since 2020

In France, it is the Minors’ Office (OFMI), created in August 2023 within the central directorate of the judicial police, which deals with these cases. He can investigate any French national who may have committed misdeeds and abuses abroad, even remotely. Investigators are helped by internal security attachés, present in the area to liaise with local police officers. They can thus obtain information on French people involved in sexual exploitation and bring it to the attention of the French authorities, who can open an investigation.

Since January 2020, justice has been more severe towards “live-streaming” “customers”. Suspects can be prosecuted for complicity in sexual assault or rape, and no longer just for possession of child pornography images.