In cybersex den: Dutchman nabbed, 8 women rescued

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — A Dutch national and his Filipina live-in partner were arrested, and eight female-victims were rescued in a police raid on a suspected cyber sex den in Murcia town, Negros Occidental around midnight last Thursday.

Three of the eight female victims were minors, and one of the victims was reportedly caught in the act of having a sex chat with a customer during the raid, according to Sr. Insp. Norberto Barniso, chief of the Murcia Police.

Arrested were Dutch man Bartel Simon Eenkhoorn, 65, and his live-in partner, Melody Bacaron, who were charged for violation of Republic Act 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003 before the Negros Occidental Prosecutor’s Office, Barniso added.

The Eenkhoorn and Bacaron are now detained at the Murcia Police jail, he added.

Armed with a search warrant issued by Regional Trial Court-Branch 53 Judge Pepito Gellada, a combined team of policemen and operatives of the CIDG swooped down on the rented house of the two suspects, police report said.

Operatives of the Murcia Police and the CIDG provincial office were joined by a team of Anti-Cyber Crime Group of CIDG based in Cebu City, headed by Sr. Insp. Michael Virtudazo, in conducting the raid.

Recovered from the suspects’ rented house were six desktop and laptop computers and their accessories, a GE digital camera and a JVC digital video camera.

Records of the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation show that Eenkhoorn, who had returned to the Philippines on February 27 this year, has a “balikbayan status” that will expire on the same date next year.

Some of the victims, in media interviews, told the police they were hired to work as househelps but were later made to go naked online for the “customers” of the suspects.

Murcia Mayor Andrew Montelibano said that the modus operandi of the suspects is to have the victims chat with foreign nationals on a computer and later ordered them to strip before the webcam.

The mayor said the cybersex den poses as internet café and carenderia during the day, adding that they don’t even have a business and mayor’s permit.

Montelibano assured the victims his office will help them, and that he is willing to take a stand and be a witness to the case. “This has got to stop. This crime has been secretly going on, not only in Murcia, but maybe somewhere else,” the mayor said, although he pointed out that it was the first case in his town.

Montelibano said there were reports that a similar cyber sex den is also being operated in northern Negros by a relative of one of the arrested suspects.

The rescued victims are now under the custody of the Murcia municipal government, pending their turnover to the DSWD.

One of the victims narrated how they got into the job: “We were given a piece of paper that says: If you want to marry a foreigner, just contact this number… There are many of us, I think a hundred...” She said that she was given P4,000 the first time, then P1,000 and P500 for every 15 days. “We work from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.,” she added. (FREEMAN)