Hundreds contact Interpol in global paedophile appeal
More than 200 people from around the world have contacted Interpol’s general secretariat offering information such as photographs, names and locations, the organisation said.
The appeal has attracted worldwide attention, with the website yesterday attracting millions of hits — 20 times more than the average daily audience.
But the world’s largest international police organisation said it could not give any details about the information as it was part of a continuing investigation.
Interpol said specialised police officers were reviewing the information and, where appropriate, would direct it to the relevant National Central Bureau or police experts specialising in crimes against children in the country or countries identified.
Kristin Kvigne, assistant director of Interpol’s Trafficking in Human Being Unit, said: “The public’s response has been positive, and we have also had encouraging feedback from local and national law enforcement officers.”
Earlier, Anders Persson, a Swedish police officer in charge of Interpol’s child abuse images team, said messages had come in from all over the world. Some of the messages include information such as names and addresses, he said. Others were simply names or sightings of people met on holiday.
The man is seen in about 200 photographs, which feature the abuse of 12 young boys. It has been established the images were taken in Vietnam and Cambodia. It is the first time Interpol has taken the step of issuing such an appeal.
Although the original photographs were digitally altered to disguise his face, specialists from Germany’s federal police agency, the Bundeskriminalamt, working with Interpol have been able to produce an identifiable image of him.
But despite global efforts to identify the man, he remains unknown. Images of were posted on Interpol’s website yesterday.
They show a white man, with dark, unkempt, receding hair. In one of the images he is wearing glasses, while in another he is smiling. It is thought the photographs were taken in 2002 or 2003.
