Child Sexual Abuse Epidemic!
Child Sexual Abuse Epidemic!
 
 
"Townshend (lead singer of the rock band, The Who) was busted as part of Operation Ore, which is England's reaction to      Operation Avalanche, a U.S. Justice Department crackdown on more than      250,000 suspected pedophiles across the globe, who were traced using credit      cards to pay for Internet child pornography. In recent weeks, Scotland Yard      has arrested over than 1,300 suspects in the investigation, including more      than 50 police officers, judges, teachers, doctors, care workers and      soldiers, the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper reported." ï¿½ SOURCE
 
 
From our    comfortable seat in life ï¿½ we never could have imagined that thousands of    well-off adults, integrated and even cultured, find pleasure in seeing    children tortured and killed.ï¿½
From a front-page    editorial in Italyï¿½s Corriere della Sera, reprinted in The Irish    Times, September 29, 2000
 
ï¿½British    detectives are trying to close a website showing pictures of a man eating a    dismembered baby ï¿½ the website, based in California ï¿½ has been linked with the    ritual abuse of children ï¿½ A second website showing similar scenes of sadistic    and ritualistic abuse has been successfully shut.ï¿½ Independent, February 21, 2001
ï¿½Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose... I am also    a theologian and as a theologian, I believe it is God's will that there be    closeness and intimacy, unity of flesh, between people... paedophiles can make    the assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose. With    boldness, they can say, 'I believe this is in fact part of God's will'."
Ralph Underwager, 'expert' witness for the defense in scores of child abuse    cases and former vocal member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, in an    interview in Paidika (a pro-pedophilia publication), conducted in June    1991 
To the    vast majority of Americans, the name Marc Dutroux does not mean much. Drop    that name in Belgium though and you are likely to elicit some very visceral    reactions. Dutroux - convicted along with his wife in 1989 for the rape and    violent abuse of five young girls, the youngest of whom was just eleven - now    stands accused of being a key player in an international child prostitution    and pornography ring whose practices included kidnapping, rape, sadistic    torture, and murder.
Dutroux was sentenced in 1989 to thirteen years for    his crimes, but was freed after having served just three. This was in spite of    the fact that, as prison governor Yvan Stuaert would later tell a    parliamentary commission: ï¿½A medical report described him as a perverse    psychopath, an explosive mix. He was an evident danger to society.ï¿½ The man    who turned Dutroux loose on society, Justice Minister Melchior Wathelet, was    rewarded with a prestigious appointment to serve as a judge at the European    Court of Justice at The Hague.
Shortly after Dutrouxï¿½s release, young girls began    to disappear in the vicinity of some of his homes. Though technically    unemployed and drawing welfare from the state, he nevertheless owned at least    six houses and lived quite lavishly. His rather lucrative income appears to    have been derived from trading in child sex-slaves, child prostitution, and    child pornography. Many of his houses appeared to stand vacant, though at    least some of them were in fact used as torture and imprisonment centers where    kidnapped girls were taken and held in underground dungeons. Some of Dutrouxï¿½s    homes were used in this way for several years following his early release,    with a growing body of evidence to indicate that fact to the police.    Authorities nevertheless failed to act on the information, or acted on it in    ways that implied either complete incompetence (according to most press    reports), or police complicity in the operation (according to any sort of    logic). 
Officials seem to have routinely ignored tips that    later proved accurate, including a report from Dutroux's own mother that her    son was holding girls prisoner in one of his houses. In addition, key facts    were withheld from investigators working on the disappearances and lines of    communication were unaccountably broken, inexcusably hindering the    investigation. Police did search one of Dutroux's homes on no less than three    separate occasions over the course of the investigation. On at least two of    those occasions, two of the missing girls were being held in heinous    conditions, imprisoned in a custom-built dungeon in the basement.    Nevertheless, according to the Guardian, the police searches came up    empty ï¿½ even though the investigating officers reported ï¿½hearing childrenï¿½s    voices on one occasion.ï¿½ 
It was not until August 13, 1996, four years after    the disappearances began, that authorities arrested Dutroux, along with his    wife (an elementary school teacher), a lodger, a policeman, and a man the Guardian described as ï¿½an associate with political connectionsï¿½ ï¿½    elsewhere identified as Jean-Michel Nihoul, a Brussels businessman and    nightclub owner. One of those taken into custody - Michel Lelievre, described    in a May 2002 BBC report as a ï¿½drug addict and petty thiefï¿½ -    reportedly told his interrogators that at least some of the girls abducted by    the ring ï¿½were kidnapped to order, for someone else.ï¿½ This was just one of    many statements by suspects and witnesses that would later be dismissed by    Belgian officials. 
Two days after the arrests, police again searched    Dutroux's home and discovered the soundproof dungeon/torture center. As CNN reported, three years earlier ï¿½police ignored tips from an informant who said    Dutroux was building secret cellars to hold girls before selling them abroad.ï¿½    In addition, in 1995, the same informant had told police that Dutroux had    offered an unidentified third man ï¿½the equivalent of $3,000 to $5,000 to    kidnap girls.ï¿½ Incredibly, it was later reported by the Guardian that    police actually had in their possession a videotape of the dungeon being    constructed: ï¿½Belgian police could have saved the lives of two children [who    were] allegedly murdered by the paedophile Marc Dutroux if they had watched a    video seized from his home which showed him building their hidden cell.ï¿½ The    tape had been seized in one of the earlier searches. 
At the time of the final search, two    fourteen-year-old girls were found imprisoned in the dungeon, chained and    starving. They described to police how they had been used as child prostitutes    and in the production of child pornography videos. More than 300 such videos    were taken into custody by the police.
On August 17, 1996, the story got grimmer as    police dug up the bodies of two eight-year-old girls at another of Dutroux's    homes. It would later be learned that the girls had been kept in one of    Dutrouxï¿½s dungeons for nine months after their abductions, during which time    they were repeatedly tortured and sexually assaulted ï¿½ all captured on    videotape. The girls were then left to slowly starve to death. Alongside of    their decimated corpses was the body of Bernard Weinstein, a former accomplice    of Dutroux who had occupied one of the houses for several years. Weinstein had    been buried alive.  
A few weeks later, two more girls were found buried    under concrete at yet another of the Dutroux properties. By that time, ten    people connected to the case were reportedly in custody. As the body count    mounted, the outrage of the Belgian people grew. They demanded to know why    this man, dubbed the 'Belgian Beast,' had been released after having served    such an absurdly short sentence. And they demanded to know why, as evidence    had continued to mount and girls had continued to disappear, the police had    chosen to do nothing. How many girls, they wanted to know, had been killed due    to this inaction? 
Adding further fuel to the fire, as a Los    Angeles Times report revealed, were claims by ï¿½a highly regarded    childrenï¿½s activist, Marie-France Botte ï¿½ [that] the Justice Ministry is    sitting on a politically sensitive list of customers of pedophile videotapes.ï¿½    The same report noted, ï¿½the affair has become further clouded by the discovery    of a motorcycle that reportedly matches the description of one used in the    1991 assassination of prominent Belgian businessman and politician Andre    Cools. Michel Bourlet, the head prosecutor on the pedophile case, meanwhile,    has publicly declared that the investigation can be thoroughly pursued only    without political interference. Several years ago, Bourlet was removed from    the highly charged Cools case, which remains unsolved.ï¿½ 
A report in Time magazine alluded to murky    links between the Dutroux operation and organized crime figures. Marc    Verwilghen - the chief investigating magistrate on the case ï¿½ stated the case    more bluntly: ï¿½For me, the Dutroux affair is a question of organised crime.ï¿½    Also mentioned in the Time article was the use of secret ï¿½underground    tunnels,ï¿½ not unlike those described by children a decade earlier at the    infamous McMartin Preschool. 
Outrage continued to grow as more arrests were made    and evidence of high-level government and police complicity continued to    emerge. One of Dutroux's accomplices, businessman Jean-Michel Nihoul,    confessed to organizing an ï¿½orgyï¿½ at a Belgian chateau that had been attended    by government officials, a former European Commissioner, and a number of law    enforcement officers. A Belgian senator noted, quite accurately, that such    parties were part of a system ï¿½which operates to this day and is used to blackmail the highly placed people who take part.ï¿½ 
According to the BBC, Nihoul has brazenly    claimed: ï¿½I am the monster of Belgium.ï¿½ He has all but dared the state to    prosecute him, claiming that he is beyond the reach of the law because he has    information that, if made public, ï¿½would bring the Government and the entire    state down.ï¿½
In September 1996, twenty-three suspects - at least    nine of whom were police officers - were detained and questioned about their    possible complicity in the crimes and/or their negligence in investigating the    case. As the Los Angeles Times noted in a very brief, two-sentence    report, the detainments ï¿½were the latest indication that police in the    southern city of Charleroi may have helped cover up the alleged crimes of Marc    Dutroux.ï¿½ The arrests followed raids on the police officersï¿½ homes and on the    headquarters of the Charleroi police force and were based on information    supplied by police inspector Georges Zicot, who had already been charged as an    accomplice. Three magistrates had also reportedly been interrogated by police    investigators.  
Just days before the arrests, police had also    arrested five suspects in the Cools assassination, including a former regional    government minister named Alain VanderBiest. Strangely enough, the News    Telegraph reported that: ï¿½Police investigating the Cools murder in 1991 ï¿½    have been given helpful leads by some of those arrested in the Dutroux case.ï¿½    The Telegraph also noted that Cools ï¿½had promised ï¿½shocking    revelationsï¿½ before his death.ï¿½ 
On October 14, 1996 came the straw that broke the    camel's back: Jean-Marc Connerotte, who had been serving as the investigating    judge on the Dutroux case, was dismissed by the Belgian Supreme Court.    Connerotte was viewed by the people as something of a rarity: a public    official/law enforcement officer who actually appeared to be pursuing a    prosecution, rather than a cover-up. The News Telegraph described him    as: ï¿½the only figure in the judiciary who enjoys the nationï¿½s confidence.ï¿½ As    the New York Times reported, Connerotte ï¿½became a national hero in    August after saving two children from a secret dungeon kept by a convicted    child rapist and ordering the inquiry that led to the discovery of the bodies    of four girls kidnapped by a child pornography network.ï¿½ He had also arrested    three men in 1994 as suspects in the Cools assassination ï¿½ just before the    case was transferred to the jurisdiction of another magistrate.  
Victimized          as a child by top-level perpetrators who today claim she is insane. The          detail of Regina's testimony is extraordinary. In 1996, she          named and described in great detail, to a specially assembled police          team, the people and places involved in the pedophile ring. Senior          judges, one of the country's most powerful politicians - now dead - and          a very influential banker were included. One of the regular organisers          of these parties, she said, was the man she knew as 'Mich', Jean Michel          Nihoul. The sessions not only involved sex, they included sadism, torture and murder; and again, she described in detail, the place, the          victims and how they were killed. She also claimed the young Marc          Dutroux was there. "At these parties Nihoul was a sort of party beast          while Dutroux was more on the side."  SEE VIDEO CLIPS ON THE "BELGIAN          X-FILES"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent_europe/1962244.stm
A    May 2002 BBC report revealed that, after Connerotteï¿½s removal, a    ï¿½special team of police officers interviewing Regina Louf and the other ï¿½Xï¿½    witnesses, as they were called, were the next to be sacked.ï¿½ The ï¿½Xï¿½ witnesses    were victims of the pedophile ring who had come forward to tell harrowing    tales of their victimization. 
A woman named Regina Louf was the first of eleven    such victims to be interviewed by police officials. Louf claimed that she had    been victimized by the ring - which included her parents and her grandmother -    from the time that she was a very young child. She described the operation in    detail to authorities, supplying them with names ï¿½ names that included ï¿½senior    judges, one of the countryï¿½s most powerful politicians - now dead - and a very    influential banker.ï¿½ According to Louf, the operation ï¿½was big business -    blackmail - there was a lot of money involved.ï¿½ Many of her victimizers, she    said, were secretly filmed for blackmail purposes. 
Louf identified Michel Nihoul as a regular organizer    of ï¿½parties.ï¿½ These parties, she said, ï¿½not only involved sex, they included    sadism, torture and murder.ï¿½ She described in detail the murdered victims, and    how and where they were killed. The BBC reported that when police    checked into Loufï¿½s claims, they were able to verify ï¿½key elements of Reginaï¿½s    story and found [that] at least one murder that she says she witnessed matched    an unsolved murder.ï¿½ Nevertheless, the same BBC report revealed that,    ï¿½today in Belgium Regina Loufï¿½s reputation is destroyed. The Prosecutor    General of Liege, Anne Thilly, declares sheï¿½s completely mad despite numerous    statements from independent psychologists to the contrary.ï¿½ According to the    judges now on the case, ï¿½her testimony has been declared worthlessï¿½ and will    not be presented in any trial of Dutroux or his associates. 
Connerotteï¿½s removal from the Dutroux case fanned    the smoldering flames of public outrage; as the Times reported,    ï¿½Hundreds of thousands of people had petitioned the high court to retain the    judge.ï¿½ Adding yet more fuel to the fire, prosecutor Michel Bourlet was    claiming that evidence indicated a pedophile ring, composed of the wealthy and    powerful, had been protected for twenty-five years. With the families of    Dutroux's victims calling for a general strike, men and women all across the    country walked away from their jobs in protest as railway workers and bus    drivers shut down public transportation, bringing some cities to a virtual    standstill. The Telegraph reported that, ï¿½in Liege, firemen turned    their hoses on the cityï¿½s court buildingï¿½ to symbolize the massive clean-up    that was in order. 
On October 20, 1996, 350,000 citizens of the tiny    nation of Belgium took to the streets of Brussels dressed all in white,    demanding the reform of a system so corrupt that it would protect the abusers,    rapists, torturers, and killers of children. The political fallout from the    case ultimately brought about the resignation of Belgium's State Police Chief,    Interior Minister, and Justice Minister, who became sacrificial lambs tossed    to the outraged masses to avoid what could easily have exploded into a    full-scale insurrection by the people, particularly after police    ï¿½incompetenceï¿½ allowed Dutroux to ï¿½escapeï¿½ and remain at large for a brief    time in April 1998. 
There were in fact calls from the people for the    entire coalition government to step down. Months later, an opinion survey by    Brusselsï¿½ Le Soir newspaper found that only one in five Belgians still    had confidence in the federal government and in the nationï¿½s criminal justice    system. As the Los Angeles Times reported in January 1998, ï¿½the    conviction remains stubbornly widespread that members of the upper crust -    government ministers, the Roman Catholic Church, the court of King Albert II -    belonged to child sex rings, or protected them.ï¿½
A formal denial by King Albert II will go into every book
FLASHBACK: Belgian king wins paedophile rebuttal. The French publishers          of a book about paedophelia in Belgium have been ordered to insert a          formal denial by the Belgian King, Albert II, of some of the allegations          it contains. King Albert and the Belgian Government went to court in          Paris because they said the book, The Paedophile Dossier,          contained a series of unfounded libels. The book, by two French          journalists, is a sensationalist account of the case of Marc Dutroux,          the alleged sex offender and killer whose discovery five years ago          caused such trauma in Belgium and the country's political establishment.          Apart from general accusations of government cover-ups, the authors          personally connect the name of King Albert with the scandal, saying that          as crown prince he attended parties at which paedophiles were present.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1609411.stm 
The lingering distrust of the people was not    alleviated by the fact that a parliamentary inquiry had identified, in April    1997, thirty officials who had, as the Times tactfully put it, ï¿½failed    to uncover Dutrouxï¿½s misdeeds.ï¿½ Nearly a year later, none of them had yet    suffered any repercussions. Additionally, at least ten missing children    suspected of having fallen prey to Dutrouxï¿½s operation have never been found. 
Just a few months before the parliamentary    commission issued its report on the Dutroux case, viewed by many as a    shameless cover-up, the Telegraph reported, ï¿½grim rumors ï¿½ have been    circulating that a second paedophile network at least as appalling may have    been operating in parallel to that said to involve Dutroux.ï¿½ The bodies of    seven children were believed to have been hidden by the ring, which was    thought could be linked to Dutroux through Michel Nihoul. Two months after    that, a man named Patrick Derochette and three of his family members were    arrested following the discovery of the body of a nine-year-old girl. Rumors    quickly began circulating linking that crime to Dutroux as well. Like Dutroux,    Derochette had previously been convicted on multiple counts of child rape. He    had been committed to a psychiatric institution from which he was released    after just six weeks. Authorities quickly denied that there was any connection    between the cases. In January 1998, however, the Telegraph reported,    ï¿½new evidence from a lawyer involved in the investigations blows a hole in    previous police claims that there was no link between the cases involving the    alleged child murderers Marc Dutroux and Patrick Derochette.ï¿½ Once again, the    connection was said to be through Nihoul. 
In April 1999, the Guardian weighed in with    this report: ï¿½the highly respected chairman of a parliamentary inquiry into    the [Dutroux] case claims that his commissionï¿½s findings were muzzled by    political and judicial leaders to prevent details emerging of complicity in    the crimes ï¿½ Mr. Verwilghen claims that senior political and legal figures    refused to cooperate with the inquiry. He says magistrates and police were    officially told to refuse to answer certain questions, in what he describes as    ï¿½a characteristic smothering operation.ï¿½ï¿½ 
As of May 2002, nearly six years after Dutroux was    taken into custody, his trial had yet to begin. Parents of victims continued    to loudly shout of a cover-up, and the Telegraph was reporting that:    ï¿½It was recently learnt that scientific tests on 6,000 hairs found in the    [underground dungeon] began only this year.ï¿½  Those tests, of course, could    reveal how many victims passed through Dutrouxï¿½s chamber of horrors. Perhaps    more importantly, they could also, as a BBC News report noted in    January 2002, ï¿½establish whether the girls had any other visitors.ï¿½ 
Anne Thilly, the aforementioned Prosecutor General    of Liege who dismissed as ï¿½madï¿½ a key prosecution witness, has been quoted as    saying, ï¿½there was no need to get the hairs analysed as no one else entered    the cage. There was no network so there was no need to look for evidence of    one. In any case, the hairs have all now been analysed.ï¿½ Thilly gave no    indication of how she knew there was nothing to find before even bothering to    look. And contrary to her claims, the BBC reported in May 2002 that the    hairs had ï¿½still not been analysed,ï¿½ according to ï¿½sources central to the    investigation.ï¿½ Thilly has also claimed ï¿½the bodies [recovered from Dutrouxï¿½s    properties] were too decomposed to test for DNA.ï¿½ The BBC though noted    ï¿½the autopsy states quite clearly that the bodies were not decomposed. Samples    were taken. It is just that no one seems to know what has happened to the    results.ï¿½ It would appear, alas, as though Anne Thilly is a rather brazen    liar.
The January BBC report came on the heels of    an interview that the imprisoned Dutroux granted a Flemish journalist and a    Belgian senator. Therein, Dutroux was quoted as admitting, ï¿½a network with all    kinds of criminal activities really does exist. But the authorities donï¿½t want    to look into it.ï¿½ He also acknowledged the existence of ï¿½a well-grounded [paedophile]    ring. I maintained regular contact with people in this ring. However, the law    does not want to investigate this lead.ï¿½ 
If the Marc Dutroux case were some kind of    aberration, it would still be a disturbing story for the level of unspeakable    corruption and depravity of the Belgian political and law enforcement    establishment of which it speaks. Far more disturbing is the fact that it does    not appear to be an isolated case at all. 
As 1999 drew to a close, the nation of Latvia was    rocked by a child prostitution/child pornography scandal that reached to the    very top of the political power structure. The case first broke in August,    when police uncovered a massive operation involving as many as 2,000 severely    abused children. When media reports began linking top Latvian officials to the    case, a special parliamentary commission was assembled to investigate the    emerging allegations. In February 2000, the chairman of the commission    delivered a report to Parliament linking the country's Prime Minister and    Justice Minister, the director of the State Revenue Service, and a number of    army and law enforcement officers to the case. A campaign was immediately    begun to discredit the committee chairman, including allegations that he is    tied to the former KGB ï¿½ a classic case of red baiting that enabled the    allegations to be dismissed as ï¿½Communistï¿½ propaganda. 
On November 27, 2002, The Guardian reported    that many among Portugalï¿½s elite were linked to a pedophile ring as well: ï¿½A    scandal over a paedophile ring run from a state orphanage gripped Portugal    yesterday as it threatened to engulf diplomats, media personalities and senior    politicians. Photographs of unnamed senior government officials with young    boys from Lisbonï¿½s Casa Pia orphanage were among the evidence reportedly    available to police after they arrested a former orphanage employee called    Carlos Silvino.ï¿½ One revelation in the case was ï¿½that systematic sexual abuse    of children at the home had allegedly been going on for more than 20 years and    had been known to police and other authorities for most of that time.ï¿½ Teresa    Costa Macedo, a former secretary of state for families, has said that she sent    a dossier to police twenty years ago containing ï¿½damning proofï¿½ of the abuse,    including photographs and eyewitness statements. The information was not acted    upon, and, for her trouble, Macedo became the victim of a campaign of threats    and intimidation. 
In June 2003, the Independent reported that    police ï¿½at first denied her reports existed,ï¿½ but then later produced them.    Macedo has testified before parliament that the former president, Antonio    Ramalho Eanes, the former foreign secretary, Jaime Garcia, and elements within    the police all knew of the ongoing abuse. An official report claims that,    ï¿½among the children still living at Casa Pia, at least 128 had been subjected    to sexual abuse. Many are deaf and dumb.ï¿½ Countless other victims have passed    through the facility over the last thirty years. Among those detained or    questioned in the case were Carlos Cruz, known in Portugal as ï¿½Mr.    Televisionï¿½; Manuel Abrantes, a former director of Casa Pia; Joao Ferreira    Diniz, a doctor at Casa Pia; Jorge Ritto, a former ambassador to UNESCO; Hugo    Marcal, Carlos Silvinoï¿½s former attorney; Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, Portugalï¿½s    Socialist Party leader; television talk show host Herman Jose; and Paulo    Pedroso, a former Labour minister.
A follow-up report in the Independent noted    that Casa Pia, founded by a police superintendent, first ï¿½came under scrutiny    20 years ago when a young inmate died ï¿½ Officials found the homeï¿½s doors open    all night and youngsters in a cruising area for male prostitutes. Four    children aged between eight and 12, missing for a fortnight, were found in a    luxury flat in nearby Cascais owned by a diplomat.ï¿½ That diplomat was Jorge    Ritto. It is now alleged that Silvino, an employee and former resident of Casa    Pia, acted for years to procure young boys for rich and powerful pedophiles,    including Ritto. Adolescent witnesses have claimed on Portuguese television    that they were offered enticements and ï¿½then raped ï¿½ and recruited for sex    parties with powerful ï¿½friends.ï¿½ Others, now adult, have told of chilling    experiences long suppressed.ï¿½ A Portuguese organization calling itself Innocence in Danger has been working for years to publicize the problem of    child abuse and child abductions in the country, but have been unable to    penetrate what they describe as a ï¿½media blackout.ï¿½ 
As of February 2003, a campaign was underway in    Scotland to unseal records that have been sealed for 100 years under special    order. The records concern the activities of Thomas Hamilton, a notorious    child molester/murderer who was credited with killing sixteen schoolchildren    and a teacher, and then himself, in 1996. One police report sealed under the    order ï¿½concerns Thomas Hamiltonï¿½s activities at a summer camp in Loch Lomond    in 1991, five years before the shootings,ï¿½ and allegedly links Hamilton to    ï¿½figures in the Scottish establishment, including two senior politicians and a    lawyer,ï¿½ according to the Guardian. 
A report in Scotlandï¿½s Sunday Herald, from    March 2003, revealed that 106 documents had been sealed. These included ï¿½a    letter connected to Hamilton, which was sent by George Robertson, currently    head of NATO, to Michael Forsyth, who was then Secretary of State for    Scotland,ï¿½ as well as ï¿½correspondence relating to Thomas Hamiltonï¿½s alleged    involvement in Freemasonry.ï¿½ A deputy justice minister, Michael Matheson, was    quoted in the article questioning the official justification for sealing the    documents: ï¿½The explanation to date about the 100-year rule was that it was    put in place to protect the interests of children named in the Central Police    Report. How can that explanation stand when children arenï¿½t named?ï¿½ 
On September 29, 2000, The Irish Times reported that yet another pedophile network had surfaced: ï¿½Eight people were    arrested in Italy and three in Russia, and police said 1,700 people were being    investigated in Italy.ï¿½ The images traded by this ring were ï¿½divided into    several categories ï¿½ The most gruesome, police said, was coded ï¿½Necros Pedo,ï¿½    in which children were raped and tortured to death.ï¿½ 
And so it is that we first confront that most    disturbing of topics ï¿½ snuff films, which most people assume do not actually    exist. As recently as February 1999, the New York Post assured readers    that: ï¿½Snuff films are the stuff of urban legend ï¿½ how did this legend get    started? No one knows.ï¿½ The unfortunate truth though is that snuff films do    actually exist, and they likely have existed for as long as film has existed,    though they were not always known by that name. According to the Post:    ï¿½The term ï¿½snuffï¿½ was actually coined during the Charles Manson case, when    press reports repeated a rumor that the Manson ï¿½familyï¿½ had filmed home movies    of the brutal slayings.ï¿½ Other reports hold that the term was coined in 1976    by a writer for the New York Times who was in need of a phrase    to describe reports of murders following sexual activity being captured on    film. 
In the late 1970s, as    Carl Raschke noted in Painted Black, the ï¿½Texas House Select Committee    on Child Pornography disclosed ï¿½ that investigators probing leads to organized    crime in Houston, Dallas, and other major cities found that ï¿½slaveï¿½ auctions    for sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys were routinely held in Mexico. Some    of the boys were featured in brutal snuff or ï¿½slasherï¿½ movies.ï¿½ Raschke also    quotes from a study by U.S. mental health professionals that claims that a    child from Mexico ï¿½can be packaged, delivered, and sold deep within [the    United States] in a short time,ï¿½ and that many are purchased solely ï¿½for the    purpose of killing.ï¿½ 
In Enslaved,    Gordon Thomas reported that: ï¿½At the start of the year [1991] Britainï¿½s    Scotland Yard was continuing to investigate reports that up to twenty children    in London had been murdered last year in [snuff films] and the video tapes    sold on the Continent.ï¿½ Journalist Nick Davies, writing for the Guardian in November 2000, revisited that investigation, which was centered on a group    of British pedophiles living in Amsterdam. The investigation revealed that the    men were running gay brothels that were essentially ï¿½frontsï¿½ for trafficking    underage boys, many purchased from the streets of economically ravaged Eastern    Europe, and others collected from the streets of London. Prominent among the    group of pedophiles were a man named Alan Williams, known as the ï¿½Welsh    Witch,ï¿½ and another named Warwick Spinks, who according to Davies, ï¿½pioneered    the trafficking of boys as young as 10.ï¿½ 
The men used the boys    in the production of child pornography and, according to several witnesses, in    the production of snuff films.  Davies wrote: ï¿½not just once but repeatedly,    evidence had come to the attention of police in England and the Netherlands,    that, for pleasure and profit, some of the exiled pedophiles in Amsterdam had    murdered boys in front of the camera.ï¿½ Indeed, witnesses had independently    given descriptions of snuff films that were remarkably consistent in the    details of the types of torture used and the manner of death, though the    descriptions of the victim and the filming location differed, indicating that    a number of such films had been made. One witness claimed to have seen five    such films.
In the fall of 1998, British detectives flew to    Amsterdam to investigate a particularly detailed account provided by a    witness. The investigators had in their possession: a detailed description of    the apartment where the witness had viewed the tape; the name of the owner of    the apartment and videotape; the name of the man who committed the murder; a    detailed description of events on the tape; and the first name and approximate    age of the victim. With all that in hand, says Davies, the detectives ï¿½hit a    wall.ï¿½ Dutch police ï¿½said it was not enoughï¿½ to warrant launching any sort of    an investigation. By that time, investigators had been hearing accounts of the    snuff films for nearly eight years. At one point, they had recruited an    undercover officer ï¿½to pose as a child abuser and befriend Warwick Spinks,ï¿½    who acknowledged to the officer that he was actively involved in trafficking    boys. He also revealed that he knew ï¿½some people who were involved in making    snuff movies and how they did it was, they only sold them in limited editions,    made 10 copies or something, 10 very rich customers in America, who paid    $5,000 each or something like that.ï¿½ There is no indication that any thorough    investigation was ever conducted, or that any arrests were ever made. 
In September 2002, the Chicago Sun Times carried a brief report of two brothers who were arrested and charged with    possessing an enormous collection of child pornography. Seized from the    brothers were 5,000 photographic images, along with about 100 videotapes and    8mm films. Among this evidence were images of ï¿½young girls apparently    tortured, raped and killed.ï¿½ The American media has shown no inclination to    shine any additional light on the case. 
An account of the recent Italian case carried by the Guardian affirmed the existence of snuff films: ï¿½Police have discovered    a massive international paedophile network selling violent child-pornography    videos to clients in Italy, the US and Germany ï¿½ (authorities are) trying to    identify 5,000 people who are suspected of attempting to purchase the videos,    some of which appear to contain images of children being tortured and    murdered.ï¿½ The UKï¿½s Independent, in a follow-up published in November    2000, also confirmed that the seized materials included child snuff films:    ï¿½Horrified investigators gathered images of more than 2,000 children who were    filmed while being abused, raped, and ï¿½ killed.ï¿½ By that time, close to 1,500    people had been charged in the case, but not - as the Guardian noted -    ï¿½those in high places who are believed to form a ï¿½paedophile lobby.ï¿½ï¿½
As in the Belgian, Latvian, and Portuguese cases,    there were indications in the Italian case of high-level complicity and a    strong belief among the people that the facts of the case were being covered    up. And as with the other cases, the Independent reported that the    magistrate heading up the inquiry ï¿½provoked a furore by denouncing a    ï¿½paedophile lobbyï¿½ supported by politicians which he said openly obstructed    the investigators and worked to prevent tougher sanctions for the consumers of    child pornography.ï¿½ The New York Times reported in March 1997 that    there is ï¿½growing public indignation in France and elsewhere about the    recurrent reports of kidnapping, rape or incest involving the very young.ï¿½ The    same Times report revealed that French police had "detained more than    250 people and confiscated some 5,000 videocassettesï¿½ in conjunction with an    investigation into a massive child pornography ring. Those detained by police    were described as ï¿½mainly married professionals.ï¿½ A dozen of them soon turned    up dead, allegedly by their own hand. 
The BBC filed a brief report on a 1996 case    that was otherwise almost completely ignored by the English-language press:    ï¿½Mexican police broke up an international child pornography ring based in the    resort of Acapulco which they said had at least four thousand clients in    the United States,ï¿½ (emphasis added). A UN envoy investigating the case    said that the ï¿½child pornography sometimes involved babies of less than one    month old.ï¿½ 
In June 1997, the News Telegraph spoke of    over 800 French homes being raided and 204 suspects being taken into custody.    Among those detained were ï¿½more than 30 teachers ï¿½ and a number of priests,ï¿½    as well as the deputy mayor of the town of Saint Mihiel. By the end of the    week, four had committed suicide, including a school headmaster. Three years    later, the BBC filed a very brief report noting that a verdict was due    ï¿½in the trial of more than sixty people accused of possessing child    pornography. One of the judges hearing the case said examining the video    evidence made him feel physically sick.ï¿½ In a familiar refrain, it was    reported that: ï¿½the French courts have been accused of attacking the easy    targets -- porn consumers -- rather than producers and distributors. And one    childrenï¿½s rights group has alleged that senior public figures were among    those investigated -- but their cases were dropped before coming to court.ï¿½ 
In 1998, another large-scale international ring was    discovered operating out of the Netherlands and Berlin, Germany. The New    York Times reported that investigators called the case ï¿½nauseating,ï¿½ in    that ï¿½images of abuse of even babies and infants were peddled via the Internet    and other media.ï¿½ Police discovered ï¿½voluminous records of what appear to be    clients and suppliers from countries including Israel, Ukraine, Britain,    Russia and the United States.ï¿½ The ring was first uncovered when a key member    was found dead in Italy. According to the Irish Times, he was murdered    by another member of the ring. His apartment in the Dutch town of Zandvoort    was found to contain ï¿½thousands of digital images stored on computer disks,ï¿½    as well as ï¿½hundreds of addresses of suspected suppliers and clients,ï¿½    according to the New York Times. The images shocked even veteran    sex-crimes investigators, one of whom stated that the seized evidence ï¿½left    [him] speechless ï¿½ It looks like the perpetrators are not dealing with human    beings but with objects.ï¿½ 
The BBC reported in June 1999 that two    unnamed German men had ï¿½gone on trial, accused of running a child pornography    ring in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.ï¿½ The pair, along with at least    eleven identified but unindicted accomplices, ï¿½made video recordings of the    gang sexually abusing children between the ages of three and 14 since 1993.ï¿½ A    large but unspecified quantity of ï¿½videos, photography, magazines and CD-ROMs    containing child pornography were confiscated.ï¿½ Also noted was a possible    connection to the Dutroux case: ï¿½There have been cases of Slovak children    being taken to Vienna to make pornographic films. The Belgian paedophile Marc    Dutroux ï¿½ was a regular visitor to one Slovak town.ï¿½ 
In September 1998, another ring had been raided ï¿½    one that the BBC described as ï¿½a larger and more sinister paedophile    network called Wonderland.ï¿½ The San Jose Mercury News reported, ï¿½police    in ï¿½ 22 states and 13 foreign countries conducted coordinated raids ï¿½ aimed at    breaking up an Internet child-pornography ring ï¿½ The ring involves as many as    200 people around the world, who exchanged over the Internet thousands of    sexually explicit images of children as young as 18 months.ï¿½ The Independent later reported that the ring ï¿½shared pictures of children    being abused -- in some cases live via web-cam broadcasts over the internet.ï¿½    The raids included homes in ï¿½Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France,    Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal and Sweden,ï¿½ according to the New York    Times, which added that: ï¿½Several dozen people were arrested, but    officials said they expected more than 100 to be charged.ï¿½ The Independent later reported that 107 suspects were ultimately arrested. The Mercury News implied that that was only the tip of the iceberg: ï¿½The ring actually extends    into 47 countries.ï¿½ 
The case was described by a British official as    ï¿½stomach-churning.ï¿½ The Times reported, ï¿½Wonderland Club members are    believed to have posed their own children for pictures ï¿½ In other cases ï¿½    parents may have taken money to let their children be used.ï¿½ The Guardian reported that over 1,250 children were featured in the photos and videos,    ï¿½many of whom suffered appalling injuries and were seen sobbing uncontrollably    as they were being sexually violated.ï¿½ The Independent added that the    victimized children were ï¿½mostly under [the age of] 10.ï¿½ A BBC report    held that the combined raids resulted in the seizure of more than ï¿½750,000    computer images of children.ï¿½ A Detective Superintendent with the British    National Crime Squad called these images ï¿½disgustingï¿½ and added that ï¿½the    behavior that has been carried out is absolutely appalling.ï¿½ The BBC also took note of the fact that, while ignored by the American press,    ï¿½Wonderland originated in the United States.ï¿½ 
Among the scores of U.S. homes raided in connection    with the case, one yielded a ï¿½database of more than 100,000 sexual photographs    of naked boys and girls.ï¿½ Interestingly enough, the Times also noted    that another raid, ï¿½in Missouri, turned up a cache of weapons as well as child    pornography in a heavily fortified trailerï¿½ ï¿½ illustrating once again, as did    the Dutroux case, the close ties between organized pedophilia and other    terrorist assaults against society. 
As with the earlier raids in Europe, a rash of    ï¿½suicidesï¿½ followed the Wonderland arrests. By October 24, 1998, the Mercury News was reporting that no fewer than four of the thirty-four    American suspects had killed themselves. These included a retired Air Force    pilot, a microbiologist at the University of Connecticut, and a computer    consultant in Colorado. In the UK, the Wonderland raids - dubbed Operation    Cathedral - resulted in the indictments of eight suspects. One of the eight    turned up dead four months later ï¿½ another alleged suicide. The other seven    were given ridiculously light sentences in February 2001 for their complicity    in inflicting unfathomable abuse on countless children. Sentences ranged from    12 to 30 months. Just a few weeks before the sentences were handed down, the Guardian was reporting that: ï¿½Police today arrested 13 suspected    paedophiles in the largest ever UK operation against child pornography.ï¿½ Once    again, a massive amount of appalling evidence was seized, with most of the    material featuring ï¿½scenes of children being raped and sexually abused.ï¿½ 
The Independent reported in February 2001:    ï¿½Detectives working on the [Wonderland] case discovered that many of the    paedophiles were also members of other child pornography groups.ï¿½ One of the    groups most closely tied to Wonderland was a ring known as the Orchid Club,    which had been exposed by a 1996 investigation in San Jose, California. That    investigation had led to the indictment of sixteen men on charges of    conspiring to produce and exchange child pornography. Members of the club were    identified in at least nine states and three foreign countries. By the time of    the Wonderland raids, the Mercury News was able to report that the    purported ringleader of the Orchid Club and ï¿½twelve others either have pleaded    guilty or have been convicted in connection with that case.ï¿½ Their crimes    included recruiting ï¿½young relatives and friends of their own children to be    molested and photographed.ï¿½ 
The club was also, like Wonderland, involved in    ï¿½real-time exploitation of childrenï¿½ on the Internet. Club members were able    to send in requests and have them acted-out on live feeds. The club also held    a pedophile ï¿½summit,ï¿½ at which members ï¿½traded stories about pre-teen girls    they had molested and photographed in sexually explicit poses.ï¿½ The summit was    held, appropriately enough, on April 20 ï¿½ the birth date of Adolph Hitler and    a significant occult holiday. 
In late March 2001, yet another interlinked, global    pedophile network was exposed. That month, the Independent reported,    ï¿½US authorities announced the arrest of four American citizens for involvement    in an international child-porn ring called Blue Orchid.ï¿½ The Los Angeles    Times added further details: ï¿½the United States and Russia have shut down    a Moscow-based international pornography ring that used the Internet to sell    videotapes of children engaged in sexual acts.ï¿½ These tapes were said to sell    for ï¿½between $200 and $300.ï¿½ As an Associated Press release revealed,    ï¿½police seized some 600 videotapes, 200 digital video disks and many boxes of photographs.ï¿½ Video duplication equipment and sales and shipping records were    also seized, leading to ï¿½criminal inquiries in 24 nations ï¿½ Many of the tapes    were bought by people in the United States; others went to Germany, Britain,    France, Denmark, China, Kuwait, Mexico and scores of other countries.ï¿½ 
The Times reported that nine people had been    arrested and fifteen search warrants had been issued in the case. The AP report noted that four of those arrests were in Russia, where two suspects,    alas, had ï¿½committed suicide.ï¿½ The ring was also said by the Times to    offer what were cryptically referred to as ï¿½custom-made videosï¿½ for the hefty    price of $5,000 each. The contents of these videos were not revealed, but it    was revealed that the ï¿½prevalence of child pornography has increased    dramatically with the growth of the Internet. There are approximately 100,000    web sites worldwide associated with child pornography.ï¿½ 
This point was reinforced the next day when the    British press reported police raids on yet another pedophile ring. A report in    the Guardian held ï¿½more than 30 people, including a ï¿½ man working for a    national youth organization, were arrested yesterday in dawn raids on the    homes of suspected paedophiles.ï¿½ Once again being sold and traded were images    ï¿½which showed children being abused.ï¿½ A report on the case in the Independent quoted a law enforcement spokesman as revealing, ï¿½that those    arrested included members of ï¿½some interesting professions,ï¿½ï¿½ though the    source demurred from revealing what those professions might be. The official    did say that they had ï¿½a disturbing scenario of one or two juveniles who have    been caught in this way. One of them appears to be a 13-year-old boy.ï¿½ The    police acknowledged that the arrested boy was ï¿½also a potential victim and    would be treated in that light,ï¿½ which seems rather obvious. Nevertheless, a    follow-up to the story that the Independent ran in May held that the    boy had become ï¿½one of the youngest people to be listed on the sex offendersï¿½    register.ï¿½
The next month, the Guardian carried a report    on Eric Franklin Rosser ï¿½ accused child pornographer, one of the FBIï¿½s    ten-most-wanted criminals, and a former keyboardist for John Cougar    Mellencampï¿½s band. According to the report, ï¿½investigators believe Rosserï¿½s    material is among pornography circulated by a British paedophile ring ï¿½ More    than 1,800 members are thought to belong to a club called Teenboys. Its    website features boys aged around 12 ï¿½ Teenboys is considered bigger than the    notorious Wonderland Club.ï¿½ 
In September 2001, the Scottish Daily Record reported that a ï¿½Salvation Army couple working on a British army base have    been arrested in a massive paedophile crackdown.ï¿½ Seized from the coupleï¿½s    home were ï¿½some 400 videotapes ï¿½ computers, discs, photographs and other    material ï¿½ images of children as young as two have been found.ï¿½ The same    report claimed ï¿½a massive vice probe into kiddie porn in the USA would expose    some of the biggest names in Hollywood as paedophiles. A federal    investigation, codenamed Operation Avalanche, has already resulted in over 100    arrests ï¿½ and the US Department of Justice say there will be hundreds more,    including celebrities.ï¿½ Lori Rabjohns, identified as a Justice Department    spokeswoman, was quoted as saying: ï¿½These are people who appear upstanding    members of society ï¿½ Weï¿½re talking doctors, lawyers ï¿½ and celebrities.ï¿½ 
The investigation came about as a result of a raid    on the Ft. Worth, Texas home of Thomas and Janice Reedy, who had been    operating a business called Landslide Productions, which offered child    pornography for sale over the Internet. The Reedyï¿½s website, according to the Independent, functioned as a portal to ï¿½more than 5,700 websites with    names such as Child Rape and Cyber Lolita.ï¿½ The Reedys had made millions of    dollars from their child porn business, which ï¿½employed more than a dozen    staff, including a customer service representative and a receptionist.ï¿½ This    financial empire was built with ï¿½money raised from the torture, rape and    sexual abuse of children as young as two.ï¿½ 
The raid on the Reedyï¿½s home, conducted in September    1999, unexpectedly yielded a database of the names and addresses of a reported    75,000 subscribers around the world. According to a report carried in February    2002 by TechTV, ï¿½more than 35,000 [of those] individual subscribers    [were] in the United States.ï¿½ Nevertheless, only 100 arrests had been made at    that time of the report ï¿½ a number that remained unchanged in the months after    the initial arrests. By early 2003, the story had dropped out of sight with    little indication that there would be any further arrests, despite Chief    Postal Inspector Kenneth Weaverï¿½s earlier insistence that the initial arrests    were just ï¿½the tip of the iceberg.ï¿½ 
More than 7,000 subscribers to the site were British    citizens. Their names, addresses and credit card information were provided by    the FBI to British authorities, who launched an investigation paralleling    Operation Avalanche that was dubbed Operation Ore. As in America, only a few    of the known offenders have thus far been arrested. Included among those    questioned by police have been television personality Matthew Kelly and    legendary guitarist Pete Townshend.
Rushing to Townshendï¿½s defense was The Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn, who earlier played a prominent role in    denouncing the McMartin prosecutions. In a posting on his Counterpunch website from February 2003, Cockburn grossly misrepresented the nature of the    charges against Townshend. He charged that, according to the Supreme Court,    ï¿½ï¿½pornï¿½ encompass[es] even clothed images of children if they are construed as    arousing. ï¿½Childï¿½ means anyone under 18.ï¿½ Cockburn labeled Townshendï¿½s arrest    ï¿½absurd,ï¿½ and claimed that if you ï¿½have a photo of a kid in a bath on your    hard drive, and the prosecutor says you were looking at it with lust in your    heart, [then] that is tantamount to sexually molesting an actual kid in an    actual bath.ï¿½ 
Cockburn was clearly trying to convey the impression    that Townshend and others are the innocent victims of overzealous prosecutors.    It will be recalled, however, that the images that the Landslide website was    offering to Townshend and other subscribers were images of ï¿½the torture, rape    and sexual abuse of children as young as two.ï¿½ Those are not the types of    images that would easily be mistaken for innocent pictures of a child taking a    bath. 
Also included among the 7,272 suspects in the United    Kingdom, according to the Observer, were ï¿½hundreds of child welfare    professionals, including police officers, care workers and teachers,ï¿½ all of    whom were ï¿½identified as ï¿½extremely high-riskï¿½ paedophiles.ï¿½ Particularly well    represented on the list were law enforcement personnel: ï¿½Investigators now    believe as many as 90 police officers have so far been identified from an    initial trawl of 200 of the British names found in the U.S. Many of the other    suspects work in other sensitive professions, often linked to the criminal    justice system.ï¿½ 
On November 4, 2002, the Independent carried    a brief report that noted that virtually all of the British suspects had ï¿½yet    to be investigated despite the police having their details for four months.ï¿½    All the information on the suspects was sent in July 2002 to the fifty-one    police departments throughout Great Britain, but ï¿½despite detailed    intelligence, nearly all of the suspected paedophiles remain at large.ï¿½ No    mention was made of why it took U.S. authorities nearly three years to get the    information to their UK counterparts. In January 2003, the Sunday Herald announced that the ï¿½police inquiry which plans to arrest a further 7000 men    across the UK ï¿½ is set to end in disaster with many suspects walking free.ï¿½    Detective Chief Inspector Bob McLachlan, the former head of Scotland Yardï¿½s    paedophile unit, told the Sunday Herald, ï¿½the lack of urgency in making    arrests will lead to suspects destroying evidence ï¿½ before they are arrested.ï¿½    McLachlan also told the Herald that claims made by police chiefs and    the government that they are prioritizing pedophile crime are nothing but    ï¿½smoke and mirrors.ï¿½ 
The final line of the Sunday Herald article    revealed that, according to police, there were enough ï¿½rich and famous    Operation Ore suspects [to] fill newspaper front pages for an entire year.ï¿½    According to The Register and the Sunday Times (which reportedly    obtained, but did not publish, all 7,272 names), the list of suspects included    ï¿½at least 20 senior executives, ï¿½ services personnel from at least five    military bases, GPs, university academics and civil servants.ï¿½ Also on the    list were a ï¿½famous newspaper columnist ï¿½ along with a songwriter for a    legendary pop band and a member of another chart-topping 1980s cult pop group,    along with an official with the Church of England.ï¿½ 
It is unlikely that any of those suspects, nor the    ï¿½high-profile former Labour Cabinet ministerï¿½ mentioned by the Sunday    Herald, will ever be prosecuted. In August 2003, Scotland on Sunday reported that the Scottish arm of the ï¿½massive internet child pornography    investigation Operation Ore has ended ï¿½ without anybody being charged with sex    abuse.ï¿½ An unnamed Scottish police chief said that that outcome ï¿½would not    trouble us if we thought that all the men who were looking at child porn on    their computer were just sad creeps who did not pose a risk to the children in    their lives, but that is not the conclusion that was drawn from every raid.ï¿½    To the contrary, what investigators repeatedly encountered was evidence that    suspects were engaged in the ongoing abuse of children. 
In March 2002, Knight Ridder carried a report    that stated: ï¿½Postal inspectors, the FBI and Canadian authorities have broken    up an underground network of adults who traded pornographic videos of children    - sometimes their own - being brutally beaten.ï¿½ At the time that the report    was filed, ten perpetrators had already been convicted and ï¿½more arrests are    expected in the ongoing investigation of what authorities described ï¿½ as a    unique case.ï¿½ According to Raymond Smith, head of the Postal Serviceï¿½s child    exploitation investigations: ï¿½Weï¿½ve seen organized networks of sadomasochistic    beatings with adults before, but this is the first time weï¿½ve seen it with    children.ï¿½ 
In an apparent attempt to downplay the appalling    behavior uncovered by the investigation, a postal inspector named Michael    Galuppo described the ring as ï¿½a bizarre group of people obsessed with    spanking children for sexual gratification.ï¿½ ï¿½Spanking,ï¿½ it should be noted,    is a rather odd way to describe what in fact were brutally sadistic beatings    involving ï¿½whips, hairbrushes, canes and wooden paddles.ï¿½ The abuse was so    severe that at least one of the children depicted on videotape ï¿½suffered    permanent disfigurement from beatings that investigators said went on for    ï¿½years.ï¿½ï¿½ Among those convicted in the case were ï¿½a middle school teacher ï¿½ a    nurse and former Boy Scout leader ï¿½ [and] a former Sunday school teacher.ï¿½ 
Just months later, in August 2002, the Independent reported that U.S. authorities had ï¿½announced the discovery of    a ï¿½despicableï¿½ child pornography ring stretching to Britain and continental    Europe, in which parents sexually abused their children and distributed    photographs of them over the internet ï¿½ Robert Bonner, The Customs    Commissioner, said he was particularly shocked to see the degree of collusion    by parents. ï¿½If this isnï¿½t unusual, God help us ï¿½ Iï¿½ve rarely seen crimes as    despicable and repugnant.ï¿½ï¿½ Of the sixteen suspects arrested in the U.S., one    ï¿½committed suicide shortly after being arrested.ï¿½ 
These cases were not, of course, in any way ï¿½uniqueï¿½    or ï¿½unusual,ï¿½ as veteran Customs and Postal Service officials, with experience    investigating cases of child exploitation, should know. 
In September 2003, the International Herald    Tribune carried a report from Berlin concerning ï¿½an international police    investigation [that] had uncovered an immense child pornography ring involving    26,500 suspects who swapped illegal images on the Internet in 166 countries.ï¿½    More than 500 homes in Germany were searched and hundreds of computers were    seized, along with tens of thousands of CD-ROMs, diskettes, and videotapes.    One seized image ï¿½showed a baby of four months being abused.ï¿½ A statement    issued by the German Interior and Justice Ministries warned that many of the    suspects, a number of whom are reportedly teachers and police officials, ï¿½are    extremely dangerous pedophiles and are from all walks of life.ï¿½ About 800 of    those suspects reside in the United States. 
Curt Becker, the justice minister for the German    state of Saxony-Anhalt, called for tougher laws to contend with the growing    market for child pornography. He also directly challenged the notion that mere    possession of such images is largely a victimless crime. ï¿½Every case of child    pornography is a document of the sexual abuse of a child,ï¿½ Becker noted, and    ï¿½every look at that image kills a childï¿½s soul.ï¿½ 
A January 2003 Sunday Herald article revealed    that police investigators had discovered ï¿½that images of Fred West abusing one    of his children are among child pornography available for downloading from the    Internet. It is unclear whether the child was Westï¿½s murdered daughter    Heather.ï¿½ Fred West was one of the UKï¿½s most notorious, and most prolific,    serial killers. Shortly after being charged with twelve counts of murder, he    died while in police custody, allegedly by his own hand. Like Dutroux, West    had constructed a torture chamber in his cellar where his victims were filmed    being raped, tortured, murdered and mutilated. The remains of nine of his    victims, minus some missing parts, were discovered buried under his house and    in his yard. 
While    we are on the subject of serial killers, The Irish Times carried the    following report in July 1998:
Police suspect a series of gruesome gay hate      killings in the Sydney region could be the work of a serial killer whose      victims might be linked through a notorious paedophile ring. The latest      mutilation murder was that of Australiaï¿½s longest serving mayor, Frank      Arkell, aged 68, who was bludgeoned to death in his flat and who had      previously faced 29 child sex charges. In the past few months two other men,      one a convicted child sex offender, were attacked in their homes in similar      circumstances and also suffered horrific injuries. Arkell, the former Lord      Mayor of Wollongong, 50 miles south of Sydney, was a key witness in a royal      commission into police corruption which uncovered a network of paedophiles. 
Those    serial killers sure come in handy sometimes. 
 ï¿½The case of abduction and murder against Belgiumï¿½s infamous paedophile      Marc Dutroux remains unresolved. He has not been brought to book for these      heinous crimes. There appears to be a steel veil drawn over the facts at the      highest level and no one is prepared to expose those involved in this      blatant cover-up ï¿½ The official answer is that a series of hysterical      conspiracy theories forced investigators to search for paedophile networks,      which didnï¿½t exist. But for observers of this debacle, thatï¿½s exactly what      didnï¿½t happen. Far from being investigated, leads pointing to a network seem      to have been blocked or buried.ï¿½ 
Olenka    Frenkiel for the BBC, May 2, 2002 
 ï¿½ï¿½ several prosecutors, policemen and    crucial eyewitnesses have committed suicide. Important evidence has also    disappeared. So maybe Dutroux is being protected from on high. What other    explanation can there be for such a disgraceful chain of events?ï¿½
Andrew    Osborn in the Guardian, January 25, 2002 
 ï¿½Bruno Tagliaferro, a Charleroi scrap metal    merchant who knew Dutroux, claimed to know something about the car in which    Julie and Melissa were kidnapped. But he was soon found dead, apparently of a    heart attack. His wife Fabienne Jaupart, refused to accept the verdict and    arranged for his body to be exhumed. Samples sent to the USA for analysis    showed heï¿½d been poisoned. Soon after, her teenage son found her dead at home    in her bed, her mattress smouldering. Publicly it was declared suicide, or an    accident. There have been 20 such unexplained deaths connected with Dutroux.ï¿½
Olenka Frenkiel for the BBC, May 2, 2002 
REFERENCES:
1. Bates, Stephen ï¿½Cover-Up Claims Revive Sex Scandal,ï¿½ Guardian UK,    April 21, 1999
2. Bates, Stephen ï¿½Police Admit Dutroux Video Bungle,ï¿½ Guardian UK,    June 17, 1999
3. Bailey, Brandon ï¿½Net-Porn Ring Traded Stories at ï¿½Pedo Partyï¿½,ï¿½ San Jose    Mercury News, July 18, 1996
4. Bell, Rachael "Marc Dutroux: the Child-Killer Who Slipped Through the    System,ï¿½ The Crime Library, www.crimelibrary.com
5. Boggan, Steve and Paul Peachey ï¿½As the Net Closed on Wonderland, An Ugly    Truth Was Revealed: This is Just the Tip of the Iceberg,ï¿½ The Independent (UK), February 14, 2001
6. Burke, Jason ï¿½Most Wanted Paedophile May Be in UK,ï¿½ Guardian UK,    June 17, 2001
7. Carroll, Rory ï¿½Paedophile Scandal Boosts Cover-Up Conspiracy,ï¿½ Guardian    UK, November 1, 2000
8. Cranford, Helen ï¿½Police ï¿½Warned Over Dutroux,ï¿½ï¿½ News Telegraph,    December 6, 1996
9. Dahlburg, John-Thor ï¿½Grisly Crimes Undermine Belgian Unity,ï¿½ Los Angeles    Times, January 3, 1998
10. Davies, Nick and Jeevan Vasager ï¿½Global Porn Ring Broken,ï¿½ Guardian UK,    January 11, 2001
11. Dixon, Robyn "3 Top Latvians Are Named in Investigation of Pedophilia,ï¿½ Los Angeles Times, February 19, 2000
12. Dolgov, Anna ï¿½Russians Want Laws on Child Porn,ï¿½ Associated Press,    March 27, 2001
13. Fritz, Mark and Solomon Moore ï¿½Suicides Follow Bust of Net Child-Porn    Ring,ï¿½ San Jose Mercury News, October 24, 1998
14. Graff, Peter ï¿½Child Porn Videos Sold From Russia in ï¿½National Geographicï¿½    Boxes,ï¿½ The Independent (UK), March 26, 2001
15. Hartley, Emma and Paul Peachey ï¿½Outrage Over ï¿½Lenientï¿½ Jail Terms for    Britons in Child Porn Ring,ï¿½ The Independent (UK), February 14, 2001
16. Helm, Toby ï¿½Paedophile Hunt Police Find Human Skull,ï¿½ News Telegraph,    September 4, 1996
17. Helm, Toby ï¿½Dutroux Urged to Name His Protectors,ï¿½ News Telegraph,    September 5, 1996
18. Helm, Toby ï¿½Belgian King Acts Over Child Sex Scandal,ï¿½ News Telegraph,    September 11, 1996
19. Helm, Toby ï¿½Belgium Fights to Shed Its Corruption-Riddled Mafia Image,ï¿½ News Telegraph, September 14, 1996
20. Helm, Toby and Pamela Readhead ï¿½Magistrate to be Taken Off Child Sex    Case,ï¿½ News Telegraph, October 13, 1996
21. Helm, Toby ï¿½Belgians Up in Arms Over Sex Case,ï¿½ News Telegraph,    October 16, 1996
22. Helm, Toby ï¿½Plea by King as Belgians Protest Over Corruption,ï¿½ News    Telegraph, October 19, 1996
23. Helm, Toby ï¿½Belgians Shocked by New Disclosure About Child Sex,ï¿½ News    Telegraph, November 22, 1996
24. Helm, Toby ï¿½Fears Grow of New Paedophile Horror,ï¿½ News Telegraph,    January 23, 1997
25. Helm, Toby ï¿½Paedophile Arrested After Girlï¿½s Body Found,ï¿½ News    Telegraph, March 7, 1997
26. Helm, Toby ï¿½Raped Children ï¿½Could Have Been Found Alive,ï¿½ï¿½ News    Telegraph, April 16, 1997
27. Helm, Toby ï¿½Belgian Police Under Attack Over ï¿½Linkï¿½ Between Paedophiles,ï¿½ News Telegraph, January 28, 1998
28. Helm, Toby ï¿½Government Crisis in Belgium Over Dutrouxï¿½s Escape,ï¿½ News    Telegraph, April 25, 1998
29. Helm, Toby ï¿½Belgium Accused of Cover-Up in Dutroux Inquiry,ï¿½ News    Telegraph, August 17, 2001
30. Herbert, Ian ï¿½Boy, 13, Arrested in Crackdown on ï¿½Net Paedophilesï¿½,ï¿½ The    Independent (UK), March 28, 2001
31. Howe, Kathleen ï¿½Russia, U.S. Shut Down Child-Porn Ring on Web,ï¿½ Los    Angeles Times, March 27, 2001
32. Kennedy, Frances ï¿½Italian Politicians Obstructing Inquiry Into Child Porn    on Net,ï¿½ The Independent (UK), November 1, 2000
33. Laurance, Jeremy ï¿½British Police Discover More Child Abuse Horror on    Internet,ï¿½ The Independent (UK), February 21, 2001
34. Murphy, Dean E. ï¿½Kidnap Deaths Plunge Belgium Into Guilt,ï¿½ Los Angeles    Times, September 2, 1996
35. Nundy, Julian ï¿½French Hunt 200 More Suspected Paedophiles,ï¿½ News    Telegraph, June 22, 1997
36. Peachey, Paul ï¿½Boy of 13 Put on Sex Offendersï¿½ Register for Child Porn,ï¿½ The Independent (UK), May 15, 2001
37. Pinon, Bertrand ï¿½Inspector Questioned in Child Sex Inquiry,ï¿½ News    Telegraph, August 26, 1996
38. Pullella, Philip ï¿½Italy Shocked by Child Pornography Scandal,ï¿½ The    Irish Times, September 29, 2000
39. Puzzanghera, Jim ï¿½International Child-Porn Ring Uncovered,ï¿½ San Jose    Mercury News, September 3, 1998
40. Raschke, Carl Painted Black, Harper and Row, 1990
41. Simons, Marlise ï¿½French Police Arrest 250 Men Linked to Child Pornography    Ring,ï¿½ New York Times, March 14, 1997
42. Simons, Marlise ï¿½Dutch Say a Sex Ring Used Infants On Internet,ï¿½ New    York Times, July 19, 1998
43. Steele, John ï¿½Hunt for Girls After Bodies Found in Child-Sex Probe,ï¿½ News Telegraph, August 19, 1996
44. Sterling, Robert ï¿½Daddyï¿½s Little Princess,ï¿½ The Konformist,    www.konformist.com
45. Stout, David ï¿½Internet Child Pornography Operation Is Raided in U.S. and    Abroad,ï¿½ New York Times, September 3, 1998
46. Sverdlick, Alan ï¿½The Snuff Movie Myth,ï¿½ New York Post, February 25,    1999
47. Thomas, Gordon Enslaved, Pharos Books, 1991
48. Ward, David ï¿½Police Smash Child Porn Network,ï¿½ Guardian UK, March    28, 2001
49. Warren, Marcus ï¿½Belgians Shocked by Tales of Secret Policemenï¿½s Orgy,ï¿½ News Telegraph, March 16, 1997
50. Willan, Philip ï¿½Paedophile Videos Stun Italians,ï¿½ Guardian UK,    September 29, 2000
51. Wilson, Jamie ï¿½Dismay at Paedophile Sentences,ï¿½ Guardian UK,    February 14, 2001
52. ï¿½Missing Kids: Belgian Parents Take Action,ï¿½ CNN.com, August 21,    1996
53. ï¿½9 Police Detained in Child-Murder Case,ï¿½ Los Angeles Times,    September 11, 1996
54. ï¿½Belgian Hero Dismissed,ï¿½ New York Times, October 15, 1996
55. ï¿½Mexico Under Fire Over Child Abuse,ï¿½ BBC News, November 14, 1997
56. ï¿½Dutch Investigate Child Pornography Ring Claim,ï¿½ The Irish Times,    July 17, 1998
57. ï¿½Child Pornographer Found Dead in His Home,ï¿½ New York Times,    September 9, 1998
58. ï¿½Child Porn ï¿½Ringleadersï¿½ Go On Trial,ï¿½ BBC News, June 23, 1999
59. ï¿½Verdicts Due in French Pornography Trial,ï¿½ BBC News, May 10, 2000
60. ï¿½Porn Ring ï¿½Was Real Child Abuse,ï¿½ï¿½ BBC News, January 10, 2001
61. ï¿½13 Arrested in Child Porn Raids,ï¿½ Guardian UK, January 17, 2001
62. ï¿½International Child Porn Ring Smashed,ï¿½ BBC News, March 26, 2001
63. Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com