Interpol rebuilds photo to find paedophile
· Scrambled picture on porn sites made recognisable
· Worldwide call to public to find serial offender
Rachel Williams
Tuesday October 9, 2007
The Guardian
The agency released photographs of an unknown man which had been digitally blurred to disguise his face but have now been unscrambled by German experts to produce clear pictures.
Interpol said it believed the man, who appears to be in his 30s, may continue to be a danger to children while he remains at large. Despite extensive earlier attempts to discover who he is, including circulating photos of him to police around the world through Interpol's network of 186 member states, the man's identity and nationality remain a mystery.
He is said to have distinguishing marks on his body that would prove he is the man in the photographs if he is eventually found.
"For years, images of this man sexually abusing children have been circulating on the internet," Interpol's secretary general, Ronald Noble, said. "We have tried all other means to identify and to bring him to justice, but we are now convinced that without the public's help this sexual predator could continue to rape and sexually abuse young children whose ages appear to range from six to early teens. We have very good reason to believe that he travels the world in order to sexually abuse and exploit vulnerable children."
Interpol posted four reconstructed photos of the man on its website, together with an original image where his face had been swirled to make it unrecognisable.
He has slightly receding dark hair, and is wearing glasses in one picture. In another he is smiling. The manhunt has been codenamed Vico because of the links to Vietnam and Cambodia.
Anders Persson, a Swedish officer overseeing Interpol's human trafficking unit's database of images of child abuse, said one of the pictures found on the internet showed the name of a hotel in Vietnam, but police checks of the guest register turned up no clues. Cambodian police recognised locations in other photos.
The images must date from before December 2004, when they were first discovered online in Germany, and some are digitally stamped as having been taken in 2002 and 2003. The 12 boys who feature in the pictures have not been located.
Mr Persson declined to reveal how specialists at Germany's federal police agency, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), produced the unblurred shots.
"Techniques are always developing," he said. "What is impossible today is possible tomorrow. There were several attempts to clear the face ... We are sure that you can't get better pictures and the people in his neighbourhood - family friends, colleagues, whatever - they will recognise him."
Mr Persson added that he had opposed making the photos public because it demonstrated to criminals that police could now unblur pictures, but that consideration and the risk the man could face public humiliation or violence were outweighed by the desire to protect children.
"It was a long discussion," he said. "We can't just sit here and do nothing. We have exhausted all possibilities within police work to find this man ... This was the last step."
Interpol, which holds more than 520,000 child abuse images from 36 different member countries, asked anyone who recognises the man or who has any other information to contact police or the Interpol bureau in their home country. It urged them not to take any direct action themselves.
Internet paedophile suspect tracked to Thailand
Matthew Weaver and agencies
Monday October 15, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The suspected child abuser was identified by five different sources from three continents as a man teaching at a school in South Korea, Interpol said.
His name, nationality, date of birth, passport number, and current and previous places of work have also been established, after more than 350 people worldwide contacted Interpol in response to a global appeal.
The international police organisation released a picture of the man, who flew from Seoul to Bangkok international airport on Thursday, where his image was captured by security cameras.
Earlier last week Interpol said the man had appeared in 200 images on the internet sexually abusing young boys in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Some of the boys were as believed to be as young six.
His face had been distorted by swirls. But the images were unscrambled by experts from German's federal police agency. Pictures were then published on Interpol's website.
He is said to have distinguishing marks on his body that would prove he is the man in the photographs if he is eventually found.
The manhunt has been codenamed Vico because of the links to Vietnam and Cambodia.
But today the secretary general of Interpol, Ronald Noble, said Thailand was now the focus for the search.
He said: "The response and contribution we have had from the public has been remarkable, as has the support from the media, which has enabled officers in our specialised unit, our office in Bangkok and police in other member countries to make such remarkable progress in such a short space of time."
Mr Noble called for the public's continued support to pinpoint the man's new location.
Thai police name suspected web paedophile
Mark Tran and agencies
Tuesday October 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
A composite picture of the suspected paedophile, Christopher Paul Neil taken from the Interpol website. Photograph: Reuters
Thai police named him as Christopher Paul Neil after a worldwide appeal by Interpol using reconstructed images of his face.
Interpol had more than 200 internet photos of the suspect abusing boys in Thailand and Cambodia, but his face had been digitally disguised until experts in Germany rebuilt the photos.
The English language teacher is thought to be on the run in Thailand. Interpol said security cameras documented his arrival at immigration on Thursday. He had apparently been working as an English language teacher in South Korea.
"We believe he is still in Thailand and we are now collecting information from neighbouring countries where he committed crimes of paedophilia so we can issue an arrest warrant for him," said Colonel Apichart Suribunya, of the Thai police.
Police have been hunting the man for three years, ever since German police found online pictures of him abusing under-age Asian boys.
The suspect was allegedly shown sexually abusing 12 Vietnamese and Cambodian boys, apparently ranging in age from six to their early teens.
The man's face was initially disguised behind a digitalised swirl but German police managed to rebuild an image of him and released four reconstructed photos last week.
Interpol said that more than 350 people supplied information to authorities worldwide after the appeal. Officials are still collecting and analysing evidence to bring charges if the suspect is arrested, it said.
Mr Neil's date of birth, passport number, and current and previous places of work had also been established, Interpol said.
"Thailand is at the centre of an international manhunt, and authorities in the country, in cooperation with Interpol and police around the world, are hunting him down," the Interpol secretary general, Ronald Noble, said yesterday.
Cambodian police alerted border authorities to look out for the suspect after a request from Interpol.
"We have issued the alert in case that person tries to enter Cambodia through any of the international checkpoints on Cambodia-Thai borders," said Keo Vanthan, a senior police official in charge of Cambodia's Interpol division.
He said police were investigating whether the suspect had previously entered Cambodia.
The case marks Thailand's latest high-profile paedophile manhunt.
John Mark Karr, who confessed to killing the six-year-old American beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, was arrested in Bangkok last year, only to be freed for lack of corroborating evidence. He taught English at several schools in Bangkok.
... Ramos Tercero.
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