A 30-year-old man was arrested on Monday in Taipa for luring underage children to take pornographic videos or photos of themselves and send them to him, as well as for sexually assaulting a minor, Public Security Police Force (PSP) Lam Keong said during a regular press conference yesterday.
The suspect, surnamed Zhou, is a non-resident worker from the mainland who worked as a retail salesperson in Macau.
According to Lam, a male child victim and his mother reported the case to the police on Sunday evening. Lam said that according to the boy, he and his male friend met Zhou at a fast food restaurant in Avenida de Guimarães late last month. Lam said that Zhou approached the two boys, who are under 12 years old, to play an online game with him, after which he added the two boys as friends on the game. Neither child’s name was revealed.
Lam said that soon after Zhou asked the boy, to send him photos of his lower body, adding that the child immediately refused and deleted the suspect from his friends’ list on the online game at once.
However, Lam said, the boy’s friend met up with the suspect in a park in Avenida de Guimarães last Wednesday at 2:40 p.m. to play online games together. While they were playing the games, Zhou touched the boy’s stomach and lower body. The boy did not stop him and only left after they finished playing, according to Lam.
Lam said after watching the fast food restaurant’s CCTV footage as well as the one in the park in Avenida de Guimarães, they identified Zhou and arrested him on Monday at 4 p.m. in Estrada Governador Albano de Oliveira. Lam also said that the police found three mobile phones and a portable hard drive on him, and they discovered over 17,000 pornographic photos of children and over 2,000 child porn videos in the items.
According to Lam, Zhou confessed that he did sexually harass the children and sexually assaulted one of them. He also confessed that he downloaded most of the videos online, and he used online video games and free props in the game to lure seven other children to send him naked pictures or videos, Lam said. Lam added that Zhou confessed that one of the children sent him a naked picture in exchange for a 28 yuan virtual “lai see” envelope.
Lam said that Zhou was arrested for child pornography and the sexual assault of a minor. Lam added that the police are still investigating the case and asked the seven other child victims and their parents to contact the police. Since multiple children were sexually assaulted, PSP have asked the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) and the Social Welfare Bureau (IAS) to follow up on the cases.
Lam stressed that a lot of children were involved in the case, therefore he warned that parents should pay more attention to what their children are doing and keep in close touch with them.
This undated handout photo provided by the Public Security Police Force (PSP) yesterday shows police officers escorting the child porn suspect to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) in Nape.
This undated handout photo provided by the PSP yesterday shows a portable hard drive and three mobile phones seized from the suspect.
