ILOILO City – An Australian man and his live-in partner were arrested by the police in an upscale subdivision in Pavia, Iloilo for allegedly selling explicit videos and photos of teenaged girls online.
The 69-year-old foreigner John Loffler and Gladys Degala, a 21-year-old resident of Barangay Lanit, Jaro district, were caught in an entrapment operation at around 11 a.m. Saturday.
Loffler rented a house at Parc Regency in Barangay Ungka 2, Pavia from where they would electronically transmit explicit images of children in exchange for money, the Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO) said.
Loffler and Degala were hauled to the detention facility of the Pavia municipal police station. They face charges for violation of Republic Act 10175, or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
Operatives searched the rented house on the strength of a warrant issued by Judge Ramon Daomilas of the Regional Trial Court Branch 11 (Cebu City), said Senior Superintendent Marlon Tayaba, provincial police director.
A police officer who posed as a client was able to confirm the alleged illicit trade – the suspects showed the officer nude photos of minor girls from different localities – Tayaba said.
According to Tayaba, the suspects would persuade girls to pose as models, asking for sexy photos first, and then nudes later.
Police seized from the house three laptop computers, four cellphones, an iPod, Palawan pawnshop receipts, and computer hard drives.
The Philippine National Police’s Women and Children Protection Center – Visayas Field Unit was also involved in the operation.
Based on intelligence information the unit has gathered for nearly two months, Degala would demand P3,000 for “sets” of sexually explicit photos of girls as young as 12 years old, the nongovernment organization International Justice Mission (IJM) stated in a press release.
The IJM is “a global organization that protects the poor from violence.” It partners with local authorities “to rescue victims of violence, bring criminals to justice, restore survivors, and strengthen justice systems.”
Loffler has been in Iloilo for two years already and he taught Degala about how to manage the business, the Iloilo police said, citing intelligence information.
Loffler and Degala admitted to the crime, Tayaba said, adding that the police were verifying information that one of the victims was a minor from the municipality of Tigbauan.
Police said that, during the entrapment, Degala again sent sexually explicit images of a 12-year-old girl and a sexually explicit video involving a 15-year-old girl, the IJM press release stated.
“The operation today…was in a subdivision with strict security provisions, with two gates manned by security guards numbering 84 personnel spread around the subdivision,” the IJM quoted Senior Superintendent Romeo Perigo, chief of the PNP Women and Children Protection Center – Visayas Field Unit, as saying.
“The area is very quiet,” Perigo said. “Nobody in the neighborhood thinks cybercrimes are being committed.”
“Joint elements” of his unit, the IPPO, the IJM, the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking Region 6, and the Social Welfare department’s Iloilo office conducted the entrapment, he said.
Perigo urged the public to “be vigilant” and “stand up and fight…crimes victimizing women and children.”
“Report cybercrimes to the nearest police station. Our campaign against crime will only succeed with your help,” he said./PN
