Prosecutor recommends no bail for suspects in cybersex ring

A CRIMINAL case for trafficking was filed yesterday against the two persons arrested during a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) raid on a cybersex den in Cebu City.

City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon, acting on the recommendation of inquest prosecutor Ernesto Narido Jr., found probable cause to indict Stella Lopez and Archie Abala for trafficking in large scale. No bail was set.

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A separate preliminary investigation will be conducted against a third respondent, one that the NBI raiding team was not able to arrest during the operation late Monday night.

Alfredo Fernandez, reportedly the live-in partner of respondent Lopez and co-owner of the house and Internet café used as a front of the cybersex den, has been given 10 days to submit his counter-affidavit.

Lopez and Abala were arrested during the raid, which also resulted in the rescue of three children, one of whom is only eight years old.

The children were allegedly recruited into the trade by Abala, who taught them how to use an Internet chat room, helped them set up a web chat account as well as assisted them in securing a money transfer account.

As of press time last night, the children were handed over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

According to the oldest of the rescued minors, the chats were hosted in an otherwise innocuous social network website that allows people to register for free and, through a downloadable third-party program or client, to talk to each other using a web cam and a computer.

Free accounts give access to public chat rooms.

The web service, however, also offers private chat room access to those who upgrade their free subscription to premium accounts.

The cybersex is done in these private chat rooms.

The girls said foreigners who want them to perform their show “sponsor” their “premium accounts” and then deposit funds via money transfer accounts in the name of adult neighbors or friends.

Atty. Bernard dela Cruz, the NBI agent who spearheaded the raid last Monday, said Lopez, Fernandez and Abala all participated in the operation of the cybersex den and certainly knew what was going on inside.

He first heard of the scam, he said, from a woman who came to the NBI and reported that her daughter had been lured into the trade.

It took them a couple of days to conduct the raid because the woman refused to sign a statement, forcing them to generate information on their own in a surveillance operation that lasted several days.

In the affidavit he executed together with agents Renan Oliva, Rey Villordon, Greg Tomagan, Jed Hife, Florante Gaoiran and Teddy Saavedra, dela Cruz revealed how the victims were brought to the Lopez home by Abala.

During the raid Monday night, Agent Rey Villordon and another NBI agent posed as customers and paid to use one of the consoles on the ground floor while keeping tabs on the stairs leading to the second floor.

The other agents positioned themselves near the house, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.