Foreigner convicted.

[Dave Hounddriver]

I will add a couple of links and also screenshots of the pages, as this has been an ongoing story and there seems to be a certain amount of censorship on this case.

5 years ago an Australian living in Cebu was arrested for running a certain business.  I am careful what I say as I do not what this site getting censored.  The links and screenshots tell the story.

The result just came down from the court.  He will spend the rest of his life in a Philippine prison.  Don't break laws here people.  Here are the links that will tell the story

5 years ago

Today's court ruling

In the event these links are taken down at some future time, here are the screen shots to give an idea of what this is all about.  Please be cautious not to make controversial comments that would bring unwanted attention to this thread.  Foreigners need to know this stuff is taken serious here.

 This is how it began 5 years ago

 This is how it ended

 

[Jollygoodfellow]

I was thinking about him a few weeks ago. Thought he may have made it disappear as I had not heard anything. OH well thats what happens. He looks to have put on some weight from photos I recall before so prison life must be better than expected. 

[Dave Hounddriver]

3 minutes ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

He looks to have put on some weight from photos I recall before so prison life must be better than expected. 

Yes he does.  I noticed that too.  He was 40 ish when I knew him 6 or 7 years ago so it would be expected that he would put on weight at this stage of life, but I heard he had been in a Cebu prison for 5 years while the trial was going on.  If so he must have found a way to make his stay quite comfortable as putting on weight in a Cebu jail is not really expected.

[Jollygoodfellow]

1 hour ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Yes he does.  I noticed that too.  He was 40 ish when I knew him 6 or 7 years ago so it would be expected that he would put on weight at this stage of life, but I heard he had been in a Cebu prison for 5 years while the trial was going on.  If so he must have found a way to make his stay quite comfortable as putting on weight in a Cebu jail is not really expected.

Happier days I guess  

[BrettGC]

Compare the skin palour and the eye-bags.. He ain't lookin' too healthy to me.  

[Tukaram (Tim)]

3 life sentences is way overboard - he must have really pissed off some well connected locals.  Also kind of hard to believe a Filipina got a life sentence as well... thought she would play the victim card.

[Old55]

If he and his wife used underage children as changed a Filipino jail is much too good for for them!

[Clermont]

11 hours ago, Tukaram (Tim) said:

3 life sentences is way overboard - he must have really pissed off some well connected locals.  Also kind of hard to believe a Filipina got a life sentence as well... thought she would play the victim card.

Only yesterday I watched a documentary on cyber sex in the PI's concerning PI children, documented by a foreign journalist in conjunction with the PI police. Last year on the forum we wrote about taking pictures of children for keepsake, be careful as in one incident a young man innocently took a picture of children playing and uploaded it to his laptop, he spent a week in jail until his innocence was proved. They didn't go into how his innocence was proven, but be careful.

Rightly they are cracking down on these grubs and in the documentary they nabbed a PI with 7 young children ready to be filmed for clients. The boss bloke doing the raid said he would spend the rest of his life in jail, yes PI's are jailed the same as foreigners for this crime. There were other near catches were the perpetrators backed away before being caught in the act, but like the police said, "We'll catch them, but it is sad that they may take the innocence of a child before we can, we know them."

Another part of the document went on to show how young Barangay girls are being duped into going to big cities with intisments of work, good living arrangements and all the thrills of life. In the part I saw, two young PI men had a young girl on a ferry and when questioned, they said it was their cousin, they were chaperoning her. Bad blue boys, their story didn't stack up and the foreigner trying to hurry off the ferry when they docked had a bit of explaining to do because they showed pictures of the snaps he'd been taking of the girl on the trip. The two young men were charged with human trafficking, life sentence, the foreigner was being held for more questioning. 

But out of the gloom a little ray of hope comes out of this sad senario, the girls are put into a countryside dormitory affair and given psychological help and education to help them through their ordeal. The government foots the bill for this, plus aid money. I can't write more on this as the location was secret because of ongoing criminal charges pending against their perpetrators.

At the end of the documentary they gave a list of the most prevalent countries involved in this trade, frightening to know one of the countries is your own, but like the boss PI policeman said, " It is a worldwide problem, it doesn't belong to the PI's."

One thing I did take onboard out of the documentary, you have to be careful around children and photographing them, innocent it may be, but if someone has a grudge against you, you could be spending a long time in jail.

 

[Dave Hounddriver]

9 hours ago, Old55 said:

If he and his wife used underage children

Lets not jump to conclusions.  Yes, he was convicted in court.  It was a Philippine court so surely it was impartial  

Many foreigners knew this man and he was quite proud of his bevy of paid beauties who did "accounting" work at his home/office.  He looked the part and he was found guilty.  That is all we can be sure of.  As to underage girls, how often have we heard that?  I never saw him with anyone who looked under 18 bu it sure is a great way to incite people into believing that 3 life sentences is too good for the guy.  In Nevada many like him would have been out of jail in 24 hours for lack of evidence but we are not in Nevada.  Still, to allow what he did in your country and to condemn him for doing it in this country sounds unfair to me.

But the point of the thread is:  Keep a low profile and don't even LOOK like you are doing anything wrong as it does not take much to convict a foreigner here.

[Tukaram (Tim)]

1 hour ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

But the point of the thread is:  Keep a low profile and don't even LOOK like you are doing anything wrong as it does not take much to convict a foreigner here.

I had the chance to meet him when I was vacationing in Cebu back in 2011.  I did not want to meet because I thought he was headed for trouble... he was just too open about his girlfriends.  I am a fan of keeping a low profile. We stick out enough just being foreigners.