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Saturday, July 01, 2006
NBI searches for porn proof
Members of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 team that raided the Ex Web Applications System office said their Thursday morning operation was valid. They denied they acted on bad information.
“We were morally convinced,” said Special Investigator Arnel Pura of the information that the company located inside an uptown mall was engaged in the online promotion of trafficking of women and children.
He supervised the surveillance operation whose findings were then used in securing a Regional Trial Court (RTC) search warrant.
The bureau, Pura said yesterday, has nothing to do with the internal problems within Ex Web, an information technology (IT) company whose marketed service is developing business software for client-companies, mostly cosmetics manufacturers, in Japan.
Surveillance
“The bureau is outside whatever is going on. Our only concern was to act on the information that was given. There was a surveillance and we became morally convinced (that the information was true),” he said.
“Besides, the investigation is not yet over. Our technical people are still going over the data. So it is very early to conclude that the information given to us was bad,” Pura pointed out.
At least three agents from NBI Manila are in town to examine the seized computers. However, the nine employees invited for questioning were released from NBI custody last Thursday night yet.
Pura said that one computer had over 10,000 pictures of nude or half-naked women on it.
“Of course, the existence of the photos does not prove the act of promoting trafficking but it is an indication that we need to look further, isn’t it?” he said.
The NBI raid was carried out around 10:30 a.m. Thursday. Agents served on Ex Web employees a search warrant, signed by RTC Branch 13 Judge Meinrado Paredes.
The warrant accused the company and its people of being “engaged in the advertisement and distribution, through the use of information technology and the Internet (data) that promotes trafficking in persons.”
The warrant said the acts are “in flagrant violation of the (anti-trafficking of women and children) law.”
It authorized the NBI raiding team to seize 12 computers, four laptops, two printers, two fax machines, telephone sets, office furniture, including “tables and chairs and booth,” brochures, foreign and domestic currency and documents “used as means in committing the offense.”
The raiding team only took the computers, though.
With the way the warrant was phrased, it was expected that the NBI would find software used in uploading large volumes of digital photos, website maintenance tools and databases containing photographs of women available for “clients” and contact information that the “clients” would pay to obtain.
But when a randomly selected unit was made to run in the presence of agents, the firm’s lawyers and some employees after the raid, only sexy photos apparently downloaded from an Internet site could be found.
Charito Amores, identified as the Ex Web officer-in-charge, said the NBI must have been operating on bad data given to them by their informant.
She suspects that the informant is one of three former Ex Web corporate officials who were earlier sacked for alleged malversation of company funds. (KNR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 1, 2006 issue)
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