Australian teacher accused of molesting beggar children in Cambodia
In
the northern Philippines, a Victorian man allegedly filmed himself
sexually abusing children and then uploaded the videos to the internet.
Increasing
numbers of Australians are being apprehended in South-East Asia's
poorest countries on child-sex charges amid growing concerns over a
billion-dollar cybersex industry targeting impoverished children,
including toddlers.
The children are being forced to perform sex acts that are streamed online to paedophiles around the world, investigators say.
Two Australian men have recently been jailed for paying children from the Philippines to perform sex acts live streamed to their Melbourne homes.
Before
being jailed for 11 years in a Melbourne court in July, 68-year-old
Patrick Ronald Goggins told police his victims as young as five would be
"out on the scrapheap, living on rubbish" if he did not pay them to
perform.
In
one of the latest cases to emerge overseas, Australian Federal Police
tipped off Cambodian authorities to the alleged activities of Australian
teacher George Moussallie, 52, who has been charged with sexually
abusing three boys aged between five and 11.
"He
has known the boys at the riverside for a long time, since around 2010.
The boys are very poor and are beggars on the riverside," said Sieng
Sok, a Phnom Penh court deputy prosecutor.
Mr
Sieng Sok said Mr Moussallie, who taught English at the private
American Pacific School in Phnom Penh, admitted taking photographs of
naked children but denied the children's claims of sexual abuse.
Police
have seized a laptop computer, about 20 memory cards and three USB
sticks from the apartment of Mr Moussallie, who was taken into custody
last Thursday.
Police have not linked him to any cybersex operation.
In
another new case, authorities in the northern Philippines raided a
65-year-old Australian man's home and found him uploading videos of
children to a pornographic website linked to an illegal cybersex
operation, the ABC reports.
The
man, whose name has not been released, has been arrested along with his
partner as well as the mother of three children who were allegedly
being abused.
Officials said the man had been living in the Philippines since 2011.
Philippine regional director of the National Bureau of Investigation said the videos were being sold to computer users.
Fairfax
Media has previously revealed that two other Australians, Hilton Reece
Munro, a former Melbourne private school teacher, and Peter James
Robinson, an engineer, are facing child sex charges on the Philippine
resort island of Cebu, a cybersex hotspot.
The men deny any wrongdoing.
Authorities
in Cebu have vowed to stamp out the abuse of children after the
discovery of several operations where the sexual abuse of children was
streamed to paedophiles in Western countries, including Australia.
The
Philippine National Police's anti-cybercrime unit says that online
pornography is now the number one crime in the Philippines.
Victorian
Country Court judge Elizabeth Gaynor last month found that Brunswick
truck driver Brett Geoffrey Le Gassick, 43, had engaged in the
"wholesale exploitation of desperate children" before sentencing him to
11 years' jail for remotely abusing more than 50 young Philippine girls.
Specific
Commonwealth charges were introduced in 2010 to target Australians
involved in the sexual abuse of children overseas, either in person or
via the internet.
The offences carry penalties up to 20 years in prison.
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