Suspect principal allegedly still receiving his salary

NELSPRUIT – The primary school principal who is being charged with the possession of child pornography, will allegedly receive a salary until the end of the year.

A close friend of the man who has been suspended since his arrest last month, told Lowvelder that the school which employed him, would apparently pay him a salary until December. Police revealed that as many as 50 more people were being investigated regarding an apparent syndicate.

National police spokesman, Lt Gen Solomon Makgale, said police could not confirm if any more of these suspects resided in the province.

Previously , Lowvelder was the first to report that the first suspect, a local primary school principal (46), had been arrested and appeared in the White River Magistrate’s Court on August 14.

Since then, five more people had been apprehended.

Prosecutor Ms Elbe Basson said the man was apparently found in possession of DVDs containing alleged child pornography images. She said police had also seized his laptops. He was released on bail of

R1 000 and is set to appear in court again on September 19.

According to Makgale, they have obtained and executed just over 30 search warrants. “We have arrested six people to date. There are many others we are likely to apprehend because we are still waiting for the result of the assessment on which our cybercrime unit is working.”

Makgale confirmed that four of those arrested were 46 years old, one is 49 and another 63.

He said they were all suspected to have been involved in an international child pornography syndicate.

The other suspects are known to be a teacher, a retired school principal, an IT expert, a legal company owner and a businessman.

Makgale confirmed they were tipped off about the syndicate by Interpol which was apparently operating and manufacturing the pornography from Canada and then distributing the material worldwide.

He said the national detective head,

Lt Gen Vinesh Munoo was in charge of the investigation which included the Gauteng Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit and cybercrime investigators.

He said they were still determining whether the children were international or if South African children had also been used.

Makgale said the police had to date seized 672 DVDs containing images of child porn and adult pornographic images, nine cellphones, six computer towers, two cameras, 22 memory cards and sticks, eight laptops, two tablets, 39 external hard drives and 25 books containing images of child porn.

This had allegedly come about when Canadian police in Atlantic had arrested suspects in a child-porn syndicate about three months ago.