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Yesterday a team  of specialised detectives from the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual  Offences Unit (FCS) from Gauteng had, during their ongoing investigation of child pornography rings in the country, arrested four adults for possession and distribution of child porn.

Three of the suspects were arrested in Hercules in Pretoria while another was arrested in Cape Town. The Cape Town suspect, a 47 year-old man who works as a broker, was arrested late last night and is currently in custody at the Fish Hoek Police station pending his first appearance in the Simonstown Magistrate's Court tomorrow(2015/09/03).

The Pretoria suspects, two men and a woman, whose ages range from 41 to 56, have today appeared in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court and their case has been postponed to this coming Friday for bail application. They have all been remanded in custody.

These latest arrests, like others before, have a global connection to them. All of these suspects' alleged shenanigans were brought to the attention of the South African Police Service's (SAPS) FCS units after police authorities in Antwerp, Belgium, arrested one of their residents for production , possession and facilitation of child pornographic images that depict minors or where minors are being used for these purposes. This suspect was found to be having two hundred and nineteen (219) contacts in his user accounts. That was in October 2014. Further investigations by the Belgian authorities pointed them to South Africa. This was not surprising as much for the police in South Africa considering the fact that time and again it has been found that consumers of this stuff do share images of child abuse with each other wherever they are in the world through some software.

During the arrests in Pretoria and Cape Town, police also confiscated six cellphones, four desktops, a laptop and three USBs.

The National Commissioner of the SAPS, General Riah Phiyega, said: "We continue to be encouraged by the commitment shown by Lieutenant Colonel Niemand and her team as they crisscross the country in unmasking these suspects and bringing them to justice to account. The fact that we arrested people for something that first emerged in faraway places is one of the reason that we as the SAPS must continue to work with others from anywhere in the world because of the global nature of crime."

The team is expecting to effect more arrests in the near future.

Issued by South African Police Service