Philippine Police Arrest Several in Massive CP Operation

After an international tip, authorities in the Philippines​ arrested another pedophile akin to Peter Scully. Like Scully, this child abuse advocate played some role in an international child abuse network. The abusers live-streamed child pornography​ and torture, via the darknet, to thousands of viewers worldwide. They arrested the Queensland man while he attempted to erase some of the data in his possession. He did not succeed.

Police found a tablet that contained 4,000 contacts involved in the network. Some watchers, some child traffickers, and many unknown. The Australian Federal Police, like in the Scully case, immediately acted on the data—as did the Philippine authorities.

The arrest and seizure of hard drives, computers, and other storage devices has been called the largest of its kind in the country. The Australian Federal Police, as of early May, saved numerous children and helped Philippine authorities arrest more members of the ring. (The full details of which have not been disclosed.)

The recent arrest of the 53-year-old David Timothy Deakin set the police operation in motion. Deakin lived in the Philippines since 2001 and avoided detection until recently when the AFP contributed to his arrest. After his arrest, he claimed that he only watched the videos and live streams. And then shortly after that, he turned around and said that the illicit material likely slipped onto his computer while he was downloading something else.

However, not unlike one of Scully’s child sex dens, his apartment indicated that Deakin played more than the role of a victim or a viewer. Police described the apartment as a filthy one, both in its state and the material contents within. One publication stated that Deakn turned the apartment into a “cyber sex den” from which he streamed child abuse and pornography videos. Inside the apartment, they found rope, children’s clothing “other bondage materials,” video cameras, and stacks of hard drives.

Authorities charged him with cyber crime, child pornography, child abuse, and child trafficking.

Information from the AFP also saved three sisters from the so-called “cybersex industry.” (Some children reportedly received $10 for participation.) Authorities in the Philippines rescued the children and arrested the mother of the girls, an impoverished widow. Authorities reported that she was responsible for human trafficking and forcing the girls into explicit interactions that appeared on the darknet. Now, and linked to the three children specifically, police arrested two more female accomplices.

Even though the the darknet, in practice, keeps users anonymous, Philippine police expect many more arrests in the coming days and weeks. Although the network interacted on darknet, the addition of a 4,000 person contact list changes the dynamic of the investigation. We don’t know exactly what the contact list reveals, but it surely tops entering investigation blindly.

The Australian Federal Police played a role in many recent darknet related arrests. This includes those in the Philippines—the center of the cybersex industry, further enabled by the advancement of technology. Now that those responsible for child sex trafficking and child pornography production can reach across the globe with videos and live streams, the crimes against children only grow worse. Incidentally, the AFP only get better at hunting down darknet criminals.

Of note: authorities are concerned that Peter Scully runs his massive child abuse network from behind bars.