MANILA (UPDATE) – Two firms selling pornographic websites, some including child pornography content, were raided by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
Eleven male employees in the office of
Werrcomm Solutions Incorporated, located along Valenzuela Street in
Sta. Mesa, Manila, were caught Tuesday engaging in online transactions with foreigners seeking pornographic content on the Internet.
According to NBI Cyber Crime Division chief Ronald Aguto Jr., the employees earn money by luring foreigners into signing up on porn websites.
"This is more of a company selling different porn sites, including child porn sites, [featuring children] as young as I guess about 12 to 15 years old," Aguto said.
An employee of Werrcomm admitted that the firm is engaged in such a business. He said Werrcomm employees are asked to pretend as female foreigners, sometimes even as minors, in order to entice clients, mostly American, British or Australian nationals, into signing up on their websites.
"Bobolahin namin. Pagka-bola namin, halimbawa sasabihin ko sasali ako ng Ms. Bali Beach sa Indonesia taops kailangan ko ng vote mo. One sign up per vote, kapag nabola na namin magsa-sign up sila. Doon na pumapasok ang pera," the employee said.
The employee said the firm earns 3 British pounds (about P220) per sign up. Aguto said the firm earns as much as P200,000 a day.
Police seized some 25 desktop computers loaded with pornographic content from the firm.
In Quezon City, the NBI also raided the office of
International Contact Centers Solutions on Wedensday morning. About 20 employees were caught selling porn websites and some 17 desktop computers were seized.
Aguto, also present in the raid, said NBI agents have yet to see whether the website subscriptions being sold by ICCS employees contained child pornography.
"Iyung mga empleyado na nadatnan natin, iimbitahan natin sila sa NBI at ang mga equipment ay dadalin ito at ie-examine natin," Aguto said.
The NBI said the owners of the two firms are facing violations of the Anti-Child Pornography Act. Aguto also revealed that one of the incorporators of ICCS, identified as Raul Barbosa, is also connected to Werrcomm Solutions Incorporated.
Investigators are also coordinating with their foreign counterparts in order to dismantle the operations of peddlers of child pornography around the world.
PH a key child porn hub
Police earlier admitted that the Philippines has rapidly become a key hub of the billion-dollar global child cybersex industry, with operators aided by widespread poverty and legal loopholes that allow them to remain anonymous.
Paying subscribers anywhere in the world can log in to sites operated from Manila and across the archipelago that stream the abuse of Filipino children on the Internet, Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa said.
Police in Britain, Australia and the Philippines earlier said they had jointly dismantled a pedophile ring that streamed live sexual abuse of Filipino children as young as six over the Internet. In some cases, the victims' parents were involved.
Fifteen victims aged between six and 15 have been rescued, Britain's National Crime Agency said, adding that 29 people had been arrested, including 11 in the Philippines.
Three other ongoing investigations have identified 733 suspects, the agency added.
Sosa said the Philippines is a "top 10" purveyor of what he described as a global "cottage industry (worth) billions of dollars".
The victims are mostly younger than 18, he said, recounting how he took part in some police raids in the northern city of Angeles, where boys and girls aged between 10 and 14 performed "lewd acts" in front of cameras.
Some of the suspects arrested are Americans or Europeans, with Filipino "cohorts", he said.
In Manila, he said the streaming is done inside hotel rooms. It is also done in 31 of the Philippines' 81 provinces, with Angeles, the central city of Cebu and the southern city of Cagayan de Oro being the other main sites.
Sosa said some of the streaming is done inside shanties in the sprawling slums of the Philippines, a country of 100 million where one in four people live on less than a dollar a day, according to government data.
Video streaming earned them at least $100 an hour, and photo sessions were worth up to 3,000 pesos (about $66), he added.
Sosa said most people who pay to view the activity are from the United States and Europe.
Sosa said the crime had spread through the help of wireless technology where users cannot be effectively tracked by law enforcers. – reports from Carolyn Bonquin, ABS-CBN; Johnson Manabat, dzMM; Agence France-Presse
