A former French spy has been apprehended in eastern France on suspicion of facilitating crimes against children in Africa, especially in Kenya.
According to Strasbourg Public Prosecutor Clarisse Taron, the suspect was apprehended on Monday and was remanded in custody on Friday, July 25.
The retired intelligence agent, who often travelled to Kenya for work, was charged with aggravated human trafficking, rape and sexual assault of minors, and capture, import, and dissemination of a pornographic image of a minor.
According to a report by the French daily Le Parisien, the 58-year-old is suspected of having paid for and remotely orchestrated sexual abuse and filmed scenes that he then consumed.
His criminal reign ended when a US-based foundation fighting child sex crimes spotted his videos online and subsequently alerted the French police.
In the recent past, there has been a significant rise in live-streamed child abuse in which children, especially from vulnerable backgrounds, are sexually exploited at the request of clients, often based in Western countries.
Scenes are broadcast in real time or recorded for online consumption, where other depraved consumers sometimes pay to watch them.
Just a few weeks ago, a Kenyan couple was arrested while attempting to sell their children for similar exploitation through an online dating platform.
Detectives drawn from the Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Protection Unit (AHTCPU) and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Changamwe apprehended the couple in Mombasa after a tip.
The mother, aged 41, was reportedly using a dating platform to advertise her three children, aged 13, 7, and 4 (two girls and a boy), exposing the minors to sexual exploitation by foreigners.
More disturbingly, the mother was selling sexually explicit content involving her children while the father, a 52-year-old man, was reportedly defiling their 13-year-old on a regular basis.
The couple is now facing grave charges that could see them serve up to a life sentence in prison as per Section 15 of the Sexual Offences Act.
