Norwegian Police representative Bente Manger and the national police in the Philippines held a press conference on Friday after they rescued twelve children from online abuse on Thursday.
She was involved in the arrest on Thursday in one of the three actions where children were rescued.
50-100 dollars
– It is always exciting when you have to campaign if it goes well. It is a poor area. It is special to go into the streets where the houses are close together, says Manger to TV 2 about the campaign.
The neighborhood they had circled using the information from Norway is a slum area.
According to local police, the children have been streamed directly to Norway and the rest of the world. Online rapists are said to have ordered streaming of the children for between 50 and 100 dollars. In Norway, at least one man from Eastern Norway has been arrested.
– It is a bit difficult to say whether there will be more arrests, says Manger.
Online rapists in the US, Europe and Australia are now wanted, the Philippine National Police writes in the press release.
The US sounded the alarm
Two Filipinos based in Bulcan were the subject of an investigation after US Homeland Security raised the alarm. They reported that Filipinos were selling sexual abuse material online to Americans.
Through an international network, it became clear that the police in Germany, the Nordic countries and Australia were investigating in the same vein, after discovering abuse material in persons who have been arrested or in the police spotlight.
In the abuse material, the investigation revealed the abuse of more than 20 Filipino children.
Police cooperation across national borders is the key to saving children who are exposed to abuse that is streamed online for money. Several children have been rescued in the area in the last month. Photo: Finn Erik Robstad
The suspects disappeared
After three months of investigation, the Philippine National Police (PNP) was ready to take action. According to the police, it complicated the investigation that the transactions took place online, and it was a challenge to locate the suspects.
In the area the police circled in, however, there were several police operations against abusers in progress, and the suspects in this case were very cautious. Exactly two weeks before the police were to go into action, they disappeared, according to the PNP.
This week, one of the suspects was again located in Leyte in the Philippines. A team responded and managed to locate a suspect along with two children who were being abused. At seven o’clock Thursday morning (Philippine time) an operation was launched in which two children in Leyte and five in Bulacan were saved.
– What meets us when we enter is that there are many people in the streets. Several people called the police when we went in there. Everything went very well. We were able to do what we could do at the scene, says Manger.
Many say that they are talking about quite young children. And they were taken care of.
– It was very good that we were able to rescue the children. That is what we work for, she says.
Five saved in Europe
Earlier that day, the Anti-Trafficking Department conducted a rescue operation in which five victims of a high-profile suspect in Europe were rescued, says the press release from the Philippine National Police.
There was no further information about these five children in the press release that was handed out at the press conference in Manila.
Must stop Norwegian abusers
Bente Manger in Kripos is stationed in Manila precisely to stop Norwegian child abusers. She began to see an increase in the number of cases in 2015, and Kripos wanted to be in place in Manila every day.
TV 2 interviewed Manger when she was stationed in Manila – see video
Bente will hunt down Norwegian child molesters in the Philippines
– There are very strong impressions, because there are poor conditions, and there are children’s effects around the crime scene, and there are mattresses and other things that show what is really going on there, Manger told TV 2 when she was stationed in the Philippines in 2020.
