Police Fear That An Infamous Pedophile Still Runs His Darknet Porn Site From Behind Bars

While Richard Huckle earned the crown of Britain’s “worst pedophile ever,” other parts of the world have their own Huckle—and possibly an even worse one. The Philippines dealt with one such example. Peter Scully’s name traveled far beyond the small circles who follow darknet or deepweb news. He made mainstream media for his prolific acts of violence towards children. The TV show “60 Minutes” featured an entire episode about the man. Police in the Philippines hunted him down and placed him behind bars in 2015, ending his reign of terror. A recent arrest, however, shined light on evidence that suggested Scully still ran his child abuse network on the darknet—from a jail cell.

The term “worst” comes attached to personal preferences and opinions. Richard Huckle earned that title and news outlets used it without objection or debate. Peter Scully earned a similar title from jail staff and police officers. Though he may not, outside of the Philippines, have left as much of an imprint as Huckle left, his news presence may not have ended. Additionally, the world never saw a large scale takedown of Scully as they did with Huckle via Taskforce Argos’s international bust of The Love Zone.

But Scully ran a massive online child pornography scene. He abused children, on a live, to viewers across the world via hidden services that left him nearly untraceable. From before the child pornography days, Scully already faced charges in Australia for fraud. The fraud charges pushed him to flee to the Philippines. There, he earned a name for himself. Online, people knew him for a chld porn/torture video that he sold to pedophiles across the world for $10,000.

After scurrying to the Philippines, the 52-year-old pedophile began growing in popularity for his films that featured his female accomplice(s) and children as young as 18-months-old. Police knocked down doors that matched parts of Scully’s videos until they found the man himself.

They arrested Scully and his live-in partner/girlfriend who he met at a young age and pimped out as a source of income. However, they let her go; they lacked concrete proof of her involvement. She then, later in 2015, led police to a house that Scully buried the remains of a 12-year-old girl underneath. According to Liezyl Margallo, the former live-in partner, he kept the girl as a sex slave until he strangled her. Officials said that she planned to testify against the predator for some of the 75 charges he pleaded “not guilty” to, including murder and child abuse.

In arguably his most popular video, a woman participated in the filmed child abuse and wore nothing but a face mask. Recent evidence, authorities announced, called for the arrest of Liezyl Margallo, his former partner. The evidence indicated the she acted in Scully’s film too—as the naked woman behind the mask.

After her arrest, police found communications with Scully on her cell phone. She texted and called the man until the week of her arrest. Investigators neglected to reveal the contents of the messages but they did speak to the press. Dominador Cimafranca, a director of the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation said, “We fear that Scully is still on top of his online services.”

If Margallo started working for Scully again—or never stopped—the case against the child abuser took a major blow. A fire at the Cagayan de Oro City Hall destroyed the evidence collected by both Australian and Philippine police. Prosecutors counted on Margallo’s testimony.

Law enforcement said that they would perform a full investigation into how Scully used a cellphone to potentially operate his business while behind bars.