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Sexual harassment and assault
This Week in AsiaPeople

Child porn modelling scam shocks Thailand as coronavirus sends online sex abuse soaring

  • Police uncover 500,000 indecent images of children while investigating an international child sex abuse ring operating from Thailand and Australia
  • Cases of online child sex abuse up 40 per cent in Thailand, experts say, as lockdown leaves minors vulnerable

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Thai police arrest Danudetch. Photo: DSI
Jitsiree Thongnoi
It began with a single photograph – a sexualised image of a boy and the tattooed hand of his abuser – and ended in one of the biggest seizures of child pornography on record.
By the time Thai police arrested Danudetch Saengkaew last month, they had uncovered more than 500,000 indecent images of children as part of their investigation into an international child sex abuse network operating from both Thailand and Australia.

Danudetch is accused of operating a bogus child modelling agency called “Nene” that he used as a front to gain access to and abuse boys as young as six. He is said to have approached his victims at their schools and even through their families, gaining trust by offering them work opportunities in the entertainment industry while in fact building up databases of obscene images that he would sell to local as well as international buyers over the internet.

Not only has the scale of the case shocked Thailand and hit headlines around the world, it has helped to expose a wider problem. Cases of online child sex abuse in Thailand have soared during the coronavirus pandemic, as locked-down minors with mobile phones and little else to do become easy prey for online predators, often with international audiences.

Napol Woraprateep, a case officer at Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI), said that in Danudetch’s case photos had been categorised by the nationality of the child involved.

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