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Black Market Baby Trafficking Organization
Exposed by Civilian in China
BY SHAWN LIN
September 6, 2021
A baby sits in a basket on his way home after shopping for spring festival couplets in Chengdu
of Sichuan Province, China, on Jan. 16, 2009. (China Photos/Getty Images)
A civilian exposed China’s black market involving the trafficking and selling of newborn babies under the guise of adoption after a year-long voluntary undercover investigation.
According to The Paper, a Chinese state-owned digital newspaper, a civilian played a critical role in the anti-trafficking effort. The civilian, Zhengyi Shangguan, joined a baby trafficking WeChat group disguised as a barren woman who desired a daughter. After prolonged undercover work, Shangguan gradually gained the trust of the middleman and was later considered to be a suitable buyer.
There were about 100 members in the WeChat group, consisting of people from various cities and provinces in China. Due to WeChat’s sensitive vocabulary recognition, the group often disbands and reassembles itself. New members must clearly state their needs or be removed from the chat group.
Shangguan was able to identify the encrypted terms used by the group to avoid vocabulary detection. For example, the slang “bao” represents “baby.” The English letter “S” represents “sending for adoption,” and “L” represents “acceptance of adoption.” The two English letters corresponded to selling and buying.
On June 11, Shangguan received an encrypted message on WeChat suggesting that a baby girl would be available, followed by a phone conversation. The party that reached out to Shangguan was Ms. Zhu, one of the alleged orchestrators.
Zhu said the baby girl was expected to be delivered around July 20 at a hospital, and the price would be $17,000. She then guaranteed the baby’s health with a clean genetic history and offered to be there for the entire delivery process. To further dispel buyer worries, Zhu also suggested that payment could be made on the delivery day, but only cash would be accepted.
In addition, Zhu repeatedly stated that a birth certificate was not recommended because it could easily be obtained afterward. However, if requested, the birth certificate would be an additional $6,000. She explained that getting a birth certificate at the time of delivery would require the birth mother to use the buyer’s identity to register the baby, which is not ideal because if the birth mother knows who the buyer is, she may decide to look for her child in the future. According to Zhu, it would be worrisome to know the birth mother could find her child one day.
After thorough communications, Shangguan learned the entire delivery process and transaction details: A pregnant woman is usually admitted to the hospital’s delivery room in the morning. For the next three days, the newborn will be looked after by the nurses and screened for diseases and defects. After the examinations are completed, the baby is ready to be discharged. Upon discharge, the nurses will hand the baby directly to Zhu. After collecting payment, Zhu then passes the baby to the buyer along with a “consent to adoption letter” signed by the birth mother—then the transaction is complete.
Zhu appeared to be detail-oriented in her operations and even provided the buyer tips in advance. She suggested that it’s best to pretend to be pregnant months before the transaction occurs. Otherwise, friends and neighbors might question when a child suddenly appears. “It may cast a shadow in the child’s future” if not done properly, Zhu said, according to Beijing-backed media ifeng.
To ensure smooth operations, Zhu claimed that she had connections in the local hospitals and that doctors and nurses generally turned a blind eye. “You have to spend what you have to spend to make things work,” Zhu added, and suggested that there are other staff that are part of the operation.
Zhu claimed to have graduated with a master’s degree and was formally a teacher. After remarrying, she was unable to conceive and started her 10-year-journey to have a child and accidentally entered the business of trafficking. The middleman in the WeChat group once helped her get a surrogate, and the two became partners.
At least it appears that they are not supplying babies to pimps. I pray to God they haven't. This does happen in SE Asia and Africa.
One of world's most-wanted paedophiles arrested in small Sarawak town
after joint effort with Aussie cops
By JUNAID IBRAHIM and SHARON LING
Sunday, 05 Sep 2021
a total of 18 years, six months' jail and 15 strokes of the rotan.
PETALING JAYA: A paedophile who has been operating under the radar for 14 years has been arrested in Lundu, a small town in Sarawak, after joint efforts between Malaysian and Australian police.
The suspect, Alladin Lanim, had been under investigation by the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Queensland Police and the Australian Transactions Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac) for two years.
According to a report by The Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday (Sept 5), four children aged nine to 14 have been rescued following his arrest.
The Sydney-based newspaper also shared a chronology of the investigation, starting with a multi-national internal police report in 2019 which had listed Alladin's online alias as one of the top 10 offenders in the world for online child exploitation.
The 40-year old man posted his heinous activities on the dark web, with detailed abuses inflicted on children aged between two and 16.
Authorities said that he has been active since 2007 and was linked to more than 1,000 images and videos of sexually-abused minors.
"He was so prolific with so many victims, that is why he became a high priority," Detective Sergeant Daniel Burnicle, the AFP's acting senior officer in Kuala Lumpur was quoted as saying to The Sydney Morning Herald.
Authorities could find no traces to the suspect save for his anonymous online profile. Experts at the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation's identification unit made a breakthrough when they finally identified the suspect in August 2020.
The AFP-led operation, which included members of Queensland Police's Argus taskforce for child victim identification, came across a possible image of the suspect on social media.
The pictures were then submitted to the Malaysian police and KL-based AFP officers and the US Homeland Security investigators who raced to identify him.
"It's just a slow, methodical burn. They were going through images trying to work out where that location may be so they can follow up. It is all very difficult with the dark web to track people," Burnicle said.
In another development of the case, a team at Austrac was able to put together another key piece in the puzzle this year by coming across the same image as the one that had been forwarded to Malaysia from Australia months earlier. This time the image came with identifying information attached.
In July, with the assistance of the Australian investigators, Malaysian authorities managed to track Alladin to a Covid-19 quarantine centre in Sarawak where he was in mandatory isolation after coming back from Peninsular Malaysia. Malaysian police were waiting for him upon his discharge on July 5 and took him into custody.
Alladin was charged with 18 counts of molesting five boys and inducing them to watch pornographic videos by offering to let them play a mobile game on his phone.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a total of 18 years, six months' jail and 15 strokes of the rotan. He pleaded guilty to four charges on Aug 16 and 14 charges on Aug 17 at three Sessions Courts in Kuching, reported Dayak Daily.
The offences were committed at a plantation quarters and a home porch in Lundu between 2018 and April this year.
"This (investigation) was all, of course, done during Covid-19 (period and MCO), which made it all more difficult to get around the country and conduct basic field inquiries.
"We hope this case will be like a learning experience that we use over here and say 'this is what's happened, how can we do it better for next time?' You need a police force to be able to counter this type of offending," Burnicle added.
Sarawak state Welfare, Community Well-being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah told The Star that she was alerted about the case. "Thankfully he was finally tracked down, prosecuted and punished for the hideous crimes he committed.
"Congratulations to the Malaysian police and the Australian Federal Police for the excellent work," she said.
Bukit Aman Sexual, Women and Child Investigations Division (D11) Assistant Direct Asst Comm Siti Kamsiah Hassan said that the arrest was the result of a close working relationship between local and Australian police.
"With his arrest we hope that it can prevent further potential cases from happening," she told The Borneo Post.
Birmingham woman having baby with a paedophile had no idea
he was banned from being around kids
By Tom Mack, James Rodger, Regional Content Editor
06:25, 6 SEP 2021
Jamie Henfrey, 24, had his first conviction in 2017 after trying to groom online a 12-year-old girl
who turned out to be a policeman. (Image: PA Images)
A paedo was living with a Birmingham woman and her baby - with her completely unaware of his string of depraved convictions.
Jamie Henfrey, 24, had his first conviction in 2017 after trying to groom online a 12-year-old girl who turned out to be a policeman.
The 24 year old was banned from being around children after convictions for possessing child porn and breaching his sexual harm prevention order, reports LeicsLive.
He had a 13-month jail sentence in May 2019 but met a woman in October of last year. They formed a relationship.
But on April 21 this year, a fake police account on Snapchat - pretending to be a 12-year-old girl called Holly - received messages from Henfrey, who sent her explicit pictures and videos of himself.
He also sent her detailed instructions of explicit acts he wanted her to perform on herself.
When police went to Henfrey's home in Glen Rise, Glen Parva, his grandmother answered the door and told the officers he was staying in Birmingham with his girlfriend.
The woman had a one-year-old child from a previous relationship and Henfrey - who was banned from staying in a house with a child - was also required by court order to tell anyone he had an intimate relationship with all about all his sexual convictions. But instead, Henfrey had told his girlfriend his involvement with the probation service was to do with money he owned other people.
At Leicester Crown Court on Friday, Henfrey admitted breaching his order twice, attempted sexual communication with a child and attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act.
He also admitted being in breach of a suspended sentence order he was given at Leicester Magistrates' Court last year for installing Snapchat on his phone, which also went against his previous court order. The order had been issued to protect children from Henfrey but he had been ignoring it.
Prosecutor Jonathan Dunne said Henfrey was "flying under the radar of those who are tasked to keep others safe".
Ben Gow, representing Henfrey, told the court: "Mr Henfrey is a young man still. He tells me he doesn't have a real interest in children - he gets drunk and has a compulsion to get online and behave as he did. He is desperate to stop."
Desperate enough to quit drinking?
Recorder Sandeep Kainth expressed his concern for Henfrey's girlfriend, who is currently pregnant with his child. He said: "As a consequence of your deliberate deception she is now pregnant. I don't know if you had been full and frank with her she would have still been with you.
"You knew full well that if you were going to have a relationship, and that person had a child, you had no option but to notify the police and be frank with your partner. But you told her a pack of lies."
He described Kaith's offending as "absolutely grotesque" and his previous convictions as "a depressing read".
Sentencing Henfrey to 41 months in jail he told him: "You are depraved."
Reports of children sexually abusing other kids
DOUBLE in a year to almost 16,000 cases
Sarah Grealish, The Sun
10:29, 6 Sep 2021
In 2017 police saw 8,000 reports of abuse - but this soared to a yearly figure between 15,000 and 16,000.
Child-on-child sexual abuse doubled in just one year
The shocking statistics, obtained by BBC Panorama, show the number of sexual offences in under-18s from 31 police forces in England and Wales.
They include rape and sexual assault where both the victim and alleged offender were under age.
In nearly 10 per cent of the cases the alleged perpetrator was under the age of 10.
And in roughly nine out of 10 cases the alleged abusers were boys.
The figures show that between April 2016 and March 2017 cops received 7,866 reports.
By 2018-2019 this had skyrocketed to 16,102.
However the most up to date stats, taken from 2020-2021, show abuse cases fell to 10,861 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
One childhood assault victim told the investigative TV show how she was abused by a boy from her school at the age of 12.
Danielle, not her real name, told the program: "Every time we met he groped me and touched me up.
“He would ask if we could have sex, and I would always say no, but he would just end up just touching me anyway.
"We were walking up the stairs at one point and he grabbed up my skirt and it really made me upset. I started crying at that point, I think it felt like I had no space."
The schoolgirl bottled up what was happening and did not tell anyone of the sexual assaults.
She said: "I thought that I would get in trouble. I just thought I was the one to blame, they would just get very angry with me and they wouldn't understand.”
She explained how when she eventually told teachers, she was told: “Oh you know, just talk about your feelings and just work things out between you two."
Labour MP and former teacher, Emma Hardy, said: "I still think that those figures might be an underestimation of the extent of the problem, because not all cases ended up going to the police. Not all things are reported."
In most places, the majority of sexual assault cases are not reported to authorities.
Battle to make sex abuse documentary accessible in schools
By Deborah Snow
September 6, 2021 — 12.00am
Producers of a documentary aimed at educating young teens about the dangers of sexual predators online are battling to overturn a classification ruling that would severely limit the film’s potential reach into schools.
The documentary, The Children In The Pictures, focuses on the work of specialist Queensland police unit Task Force Argos and recently established federal agency the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE).
The carefully constructed film contains no graphic images but showcases methods used by police to battle the rising tide of child sexual exploitation on the dark web. It also looks at the ways in which predators – impersonating naive teens – can lure youngsters into providing imagery that is then used to blackmail them into traps they can’t easily escape.
Despite the producers’ circumspect handling of the material, a four-person panel from the federal government’s Classification Board slapped an MA15+ ruling on the film on August 13, with the consumer advice of “strong themes and references to child sexual abuse”.
Producers Simon Nasht and Tony Wright are appealing against the decision, backed by a number of experts in child psychology and education, who say a less restrictive M rating would better serve community interests.
Mr Nasht and Mr Wright argue that the classification is detrimental to the use of the film as a valuable teaching resource, is “counterproductive to the safety of young people” and is not supported by evidence or informed by an understanding of the issues explored in the film.
Mr Nasht told the Herald that globally, sexual exploitation of children and young teens was a crime that was “#MeToo” in its scale and urgency.
No! It's far beyond that!
“Obviously we advocate the film should be used with care in schools and teacher guidance, which is why we are working with ATOM [Australian Teachers of Media] and other experts to prepare extensive support materials and teacher guides,” he said.
He said the aim of the project was to help youngsters in year 9 and above understand the risks they face online. In 2020, the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) reported the existence of 70 million child sexual abuse files, many of which would circulate indefinitely, Mr Nasht said.
I think it should be viewed by children aged 9 and older.
The head of the Australian Childhood Foundation, Dr Joe Tucci, told the Herald: “I believe young people will appreciate the knowledge they can get from this movie. It’s them who are affected by this crime. Withholding it from 14 and 15-year-olds does not do them any benefits, it only keeps them in the dark about how this kind of crime works, the deceptions that offenders use to manipulate the truth and manipulate them.”
Childhood education expert Professor Kerryann Walsh, from the Queensland University of Technology, said the documentary would be better suited to a less restrictive M rating.
“Kids need to be given agency and trusted to make sense of this ... They need safe entry points into this kind of material where it can be discussed in a regulated, caring, supportive space.”
The film is slated to run on SBS towards the end of October.
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