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International Child Porn Network Unraveling
Miffy
It was a bunny did them in. A special, stuffed bunny, coupled with a very limited edition orange sweater. Together, bunny and sweater are getting the credit for bringing down an international child pornography ring and making possible the arrest of 43 men, and identification, rescue and treatment of 140 victims.
The bunny and sweater were in a photo of a half-naked, terrified 18-month old boy that was making the rounds among consumers of kiddie porn. The breakdown of the network began when a hotel manager named Robert Diduca in Milford, Massachusetts, sent the picture to an undercover agent in Boston. The agent, in turn, sent it to Interpol in Europe. A specialist in their child porn division recognized the bunny as a character in a series of Dutch children’s books, Miffy. The orange sweater intrigued the Interpol agent, and she finally traced it to a small shop in Amsterdam that sold only 20 of them. Interpol broadcast the photo, asking for the public’s assistance in finding the boy. Within minutes, friends and relatives had called the boy’s mother. Through her, Interpol was able to track the man who took the photo, Robert Mikelsons, a 27 year old who had baby sat the boy. On Mikelsons’ computer were thousands of photos of young children naked, being sexually abused, being raped, and in one instance, posed as a roast in a pan in an oven.
Connecting Miffy to an Amsterdam sweater shop was really just dumb luck, because Miffy is fairly international, and shares style and fans with Japanese characters. Miffys are available on-line in a wide range of clothing and styles. And, because of this case, Miffy is now the “pink ribbon” for abused children. The Velveteen Rabbit would be very proud of his stuffed cousin.
Between Diduca’s and Mikelsons’ computers, the F.B.I. and Interpol were able to track the 43 men they have already arrested, and more arrests are expected as they continue to track ISPs and e-mail addresses around the world. More importantly, they are tracking the children, the eldest in the Netherlands being four years and the youngest just 19 days old. The arrests have taken place in the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden and Mexico.
Diduca pleaded guilty to child porn and sexual exploitation charges and has been sentenced to 18 years. Mikelsons also received an 18 year sentence, but his sentence has an addendum on it – indefinite psychiatric commitment. He confessed to sexually abusing over 80 children.
In Kansas, authorities arrested Michael Arnett, the source of some photos they found when tracing Mikelsons e-mails and chats. One set of photos were of a naked 2-year-old in a roasting pan inside an oven. The chats concerning these photos involved cannibalism and speculations on how tender toddler buttocks would be. From Arnett, they were able to arrest four other men. The boys who were photographed by Arnett were found alive, but they had been abused. One of those arrested was Ronald Brown, a puppeteer from Largo, Florida, who had appeared on a Christian TV show in the 1980s. Brown has admitted to the chats, but claims they were just fantasies, and he never harmed any child. Well, in getting involved in these photos and chats, Brown did harm children because he added to the demand for these types of photos.
Finding the victims has been an exercise in extreme patience for the agents involved. They have examined thousands of photos, analyzing them for any detail that could lead them to where the photos were taken and who the children are, working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A video of a two-year-old being raped was enhanced to examine the furniture and carpeting to determine that it was taken in a motel, then they were able to identify the motel as being in Bakersfield, California. A television playing the background enabled them determine the local station, and to date the video by pinpointing when that particular episode of that show with those particular commercials was broadcast. Motel registration enabled the arrest of a man from Colorado. `
The international investigation resembles the surface of a pond when a handful of pebbles are thrown in, ripples overlapping ripples, reaching ever outward, and just when they think they’ve reached the end of the ripples, someone drops in more pebbles, with more ripples reaching outward. Driving the agents all over the world who are working on this is their obsession with rescuing the children, getting them the help and care they need, and always, the prayer that they will be finding live children and not hunting for bodies. It goes back to a question sometimes asked on the TV show Criminal Minds – how can you keep doing this horrific work? Well, because sometimes they are successful at saving a life and having a happy ending.
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