Wacky INTERNATIONAL Internet Predator… Thursday
Doing a special post today, this is a follow-up – or appendix – to my Wednesday predator blogs. Today is Wacky INTERNATIONAL Internet Predator Thursday!
In today’s blog, I highlight a predator in Canada and one in France (from Belgium). These guys are everywhere!
- A 35-year-old man was arrested in Victoria, British Columbia, for soliciting a 14-year-old girl online and possessing child pornography. The girl turned out to be an undercover cop!
- A 41-year-old Belgium man was arrested in France, after attempting to run away with a 12-year-old British girl he met online. He followed the family to their vacation destination and met up with the girl, who WILLINGLY got in a cab with him with the intent of traveling (he told her to Spain, but he had other plans). When the man realized the girl has no passport, he ditched her. Read this fantastic story of child ignorance and dirty scumbaggery.
I don’t understand what proof more parents need to convince them it is time they put PC Pandora monitoring software on the computer… It is the best way tokeep your kids safe online, because you will KNOW what they are doing!
Victoria police are reminding parents to be vigilant about protecting their children from online predators after a 35-year-old man was arrested last week for luring a child and possessing and distributing child pornography.
The special victims unit arrested the man Thursday at an undisclosed educational facility in Greater Victoria where he planned to meet a 14-year-old girl he had chatted with online regularly since April.
But the girl, as it turned out, was actually an undercover Vancouver police officer.
The pair began their correspondence in an Internet chat room, but soon moved on to instant messaging programs, such as Microsoft Messenger.
Police say the man introduced topics of a sexual nature and shared photos of adults and young teens engaged in sexual activity.
The pair also made plans to meet in person in Victoria.
“It got to a place where this guy had crossed the line and broken the law,” said Det. Sgt. Todd Wellman, adding the case was handed over to Victoria police about two weeks ago.
After the man’s arrest, a subsequent search warrant was obtained for his Vic West apartment. Police seized 15 computer harddrives and other evidence related to the investigation.
The man will appear in court Aug. 12. He does not have a criminal record and was released on the conditions that he not have contact with children, not use a computer and regularly report his whereabouts to a bail supervisor.
“We try to put safeguards in place to make sure he can’t do the same thing he’s been charged with doing,” Wellman said.
Police did not name the website the man used to contact the undercover officer, only that it was a chat room.
“There’s a ton of different chat rooms out there on the Internet,” Wellman said. “Sometimes these predators pick the ones where he knows a certain age group he may be interested in are chatting.”
Wellman said the investigation is ongoing, but no other victims have been identified.
“We wanted to take this opportunity as a reminder to parents that the threat to our children on the Internet is real and that they have an important role to play to keep our kids safe,” he said.
Police recommend parents talk openly with their children about the dangers of Internet predators, familiarize themselves with their child’s online world, learn about privacy settings, limit time on the computer, move it to a common area in the house and monitor children when they’re online.
Victoria police have handled an average of 12 cases of possession of child pornography per year since 2006.
July 8, 2009
British girl rescued after abduction on French holiday
A 12-year-old British girl was rescued by French police after she was abducted during her family holiday by a Belgian man who groomed her on the internet.
By Auslan CrambThe 41-year-old was seized on a plane at Marseilles airport after abandoning the girl when he found out she had no passport with her.
They met in an internet chat room four months earlier and the schoolgirl, who is believed to be from Glasgow, told him where she was staying in the resort of Saint-Cyr in southern France.
The internet stalker, who claimed to be 28, arrived at her hotel last Friday and took her to Marseille airport, telling her he was taking her to Spain.
But when they reached security controls he realized she had no passport and left her in the terminal while he boarded the plane to Madrid.
She was discovered alone and sobbing by airport police and told them that a man had been trying to take her Spain.
Officers boarded the plane and arrested the man just ten minutes before it was due to take off.
Police said the girl had been with the man for about three hours and her parents had not reported her missing by the time she was found.
A French police spokesman added: “It was the middle of the day and her mother and father assumed she was out playing. In fact she had left in a taxi with a man she had met in a chat room.
“Over the previous four months she had been chatting to a man who she believed was 28-years-old. She had told him where and when she was going on holiday and he had clearly followed her there.”
Police said the girl met the man on a social networking site called Gaia.com, which describes itself as “an online gathering of environmentally and spiritually conscious people”.
The spokesman added: “When the parents were notified they were horrified to learn their daughter had been found at Marseille airport.
“It seems she had at first gone with the man willingly, but he abandoned her at the airport when he found she had no passport.”
When frontier police arrested the man, who lives in Spain, he at first claimed to be the child’s uncle. He was held in custody over the weekend before being charged with child abduction by a judge in Aix-en-Provence on Monday.
The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was returned to her family at their holiday hotel.
John Carr, from the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, said the case was a classic example of why parents needed to talk to their children about the importance of not revealing personal information over the internet.
“This is the kind of thing that can happen. It doesn’t happen very often but it is a tragedy when it does,” he said.
“It’s about talking to your child and keeping open channels of communication so they feel that they can come and talk to you if something untoward does happen.”
