DoJ Indicts Australian National, 7 Others For Online Sexual Exploitation of Children

The Department of Justice (DoJ) has ordered the filing of string of criminal charges against an Australian national and seven others in connection with online sexual exploitation of children in Cagayan de Oro City and Surigao City.

In a memorandum, prepared by Assistant State Prosecutor Jinky Dedumo and approved by Prosecutor General Claro Arellano, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II directed the filing of 69 information before the courts in Cagayan de Oro City, Surigao City and Malaybalay City against suspects Peter Gerard Scully (Australian), his former live-in partner, Liezyl Margallo; Ma. Dorothea Chia; Haniel Caetano de Oliveira; Alexander Lao; Christian Johann Rothe and Marshall Ruskin.

The respondents will be charged for eight counts of qualified trafficking in persons committed by a syndicate, five counts of syndicated child pornography, nine counts of child abuse, five counts of indecent shows, obscene exhibitions and publications, four counts of Child pornography under the Cybercrime Prevention Act, 25 counts of photo and video Voyeurism and 13 counts of rape.

The complaints were filed by the National Bureau of Investigation last year and were submitted for resolution in December also last year.

The case is about the sexual and physical abuse of eight Filipina girls ages 1 to 13 in Cagayan de Oro City from April 2011 up to September 2014. The abuses were recorded with the use of a digital camera and uploaded on a porn website.

In a resolution, the DOJ said Scully and Margallo “in conspiracy with the other accused procured, recruited, hired, maintained, harbored, provided, offered, transported, obtained and received the child victims for the purpose of exploitation such as prostitution, pornography or the production of pornography or other forms of sexual exploitation.”

It said that the modus operandi of Scully and Margallo would be to recruit, hire and or obtain minor children, including the victims under the guise of adopting them to give them better lives and to send them to school when in fact, they would intend to “sexually exploit or abuse them and specifically to engage them in prostitution, pornography or the production of pornography in exchange for money, profit or any other consideration.”

The resolution likewise said that they also used physical force, play, deception, threats or other forms of coercion to engage the said minor children and maintain their silence.

Aside from sexually abusing the victims, the respondents also offered, peddled, promoted and advertised the victims through the web or cyberspace, including an online chat with customers from other countries with their nude or pornographic images or videos viewable and accessible within and outside of the country.

“Apparently, these videos have been known to the international law enforcement community for quite some time. Inquiries… to foreign law enforcement officers revealed that the said [videos] contained serious sexual abuses and physical torture on children believed to be from the Philippines by an unidentified Asian-looking woman and her unidentified male Caucasian accomplice,” the DOJ added.

In the same resolution, the DOJ also ordered the NBI to coordinate with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and take custody of the still unrescued minor victims and provide them with post-care treatment.

“[The NBI is ordered] to conduct further investigation as to the other involved conspirators/cohorts whether local or foreign nationals/residents, tagged and/or implicated, directly or indirectly in the evidence at hand including the possible identification of the cybernames (usernames/user IDs, email addresses); contact numbers; cyberlocations (including Internet Protocol addresses and recorded places/sites if any); websites and e. web applications,” the DOJ said.

The DOJ noted that based on the NBI-Cybercrime Division Digital Forensic Reports, there are still a lot of unrescued cybertrafficking victims that needed immediate assistance.

The DOJ added that the cyber pornomarket was still feasting on the nude videos of at least five minor victims including that of an 18-month old.

The DOJ said the case for murder for the death of their 12-year old victim found buried in the kitchen of their house in Surigao City has been absorbed in the qualified trafficking in persons case.

It will be recalled that the NBI and the DOJ Office of the Cybercrime began its investigation on the case after foreign law enforcement counterparts informed the Philippine contingent of a so-called “Daisy Video Case” during an INTERPOL Human Trafficking Conference in Bermuda in October 2014.

Philippine authorities were then assisted by the National Police of the Netherlands, which had earlier investigated the “Daisy Video Case” and already possessed a case file containing photographs of the victims, the male and female suspects, and the interior of the houses where the abuses took place.

The DOJ investigation was helped by the fact that Scully has a pending case before the Cagayan de Oro Regional Trial Court Branch 37 for the sexual and physical abuse of two Filipina girls, aged 9-year old and 12-year old, dubbed as the Apovel case for reportedly having been committed at Apovel Subdivision in Barangay Buluan.

Scully was arrested by the NBI last Feb. 20, 2015 by virtue of the outstanding arrest warrants issued by the Cagayan de Oro RTC, inside a house in Purok 2, Barangay Violeta, Malaybalay. (PNA) RMA/CLTC