SAPS's Serial and Electronic Crime Investigations Unit (SECI) has in collaboration with the USA Department of Homeland Security arrested three child online sexual predators in Gauteng. The unit members are responsible for investigating, tracing and apprehending serial rapists and electronic crimes relating to online child sexual exploitation. 

SEXUAL PREDATORS

Police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said the trio was arrested during a takedown operation relating to a number of suspects, who were identified as South Africans involved in the possession, distribution, manufacturing, accessing and downloading of child pornography. For months, members of the SECI conducted preliminary investigations on the users who were discovered to be residing in various parts of Gauteng. "In Springs, police arrested a 63-year-old male British citizen who was found to be in the country illegally. The suspect faces offences related to bestiality, where police have seized material of him allegedly having sexual intercourse with a dog," she said. Mathe added that the second suspect, a male (43), was arrested in Benoni while a third suspect, a 43-year-old South African male suspect was arrested in Krugersdorp.

THE CHARGES

All the suspects are facing charges relating to the possession, distribution, accessing, downloading, facilitating, viewing, facilitating the distribution and making available child pornography, exposure of a child to adult and child pornography and grooming of a child," said Mathe adding that, as a result of these operations, three South African children who were used during the commission of the offences were identified and a dog was rescued. "The operations will continue throughout the country to unravel a network of child sexual predators," Mathe said. The trio already appeared before Springs, Benoni and Krugersdorp Magistrates Courts respectively yesterday. Their cases were postponed for further investigation and bail application.