MEXICO CITY ( Associated Press) — International activist groups, Mexican prosecutors and a dog trained to sniff out memory devices joined forces in Mexico City this month to nab a suspected pedophile.
First, Free a Girl, a Netherlands-based anti-trafficking group, alerted activists of the American organization Operation Underground Railroad that Jason Matmann, a Dutchman who was an outspoken advocate of having sex with children, was fleeing pending legal proceedings. After that went to Mexico. in the Netherlands.
Mattman clearly thought that Mexico’s lax law enforcement would allow him to function freely in Mexico City, a metropolis of 21 million people where most crimes go unpunished.
But he wasn’t trusting Hidu, a recent graduate of an academy that teaches dogs to sniff out triphenylphosphine oxide, or TPPO, a chemical coating used on electronic devices such as flash drives and memory cards.
“Three weeks ago, we learned that Nelson M. seemed to be active in Mexico, and was a serious threat to children,” said Free a Girl director Avellian Holsken. He said the group contacted Operation Underground Railroad “and we asked if they could launch an investigation.”
Matman was reportedly so confident of himself that he openly discussed his online activities. But Mexican prosecutors were willing to cooperate with NGOs.
Operation Underground Railroad planned to use the chat rooms and social media space to lure Mattman into a trap in which he was active.
“We were able to confirm that he was in Mexico and then spoke to him in different chat rooms. He told us: ‘I’m in very dangerous territory. I don’t want to give them my address. I don’t want them to come to see me, but they can come to see me at the gas station,'” said Matt Osborne, the group’s director of global operations.
Detectives from the Mexico City Prosecutor’s Office were waiting when Mattman appeared on June 5 at a bus station near a gas station on the outskirts of the city’s main park.
Mexico City Attorney General Ernestina Godoy said a pistol and several doses of cocaine were found in Mattman’s possession.
Mattman has been detained in a prison in the nation’s capital on charges of human trafficking and possession of drugs and weapons. He does not have a registered lawyer and cannot be contacted for comment.
“We understand that he was getting offers from other people who wanted to go into business with him,” apparently to sell or monetize sexually explicit material featuring young children, Osborne said. “They said they needed the money,” he said.
The problem was that he was stopped at the bus stop, not at his house, and no one knew where he lived. No one knew where he could hide child sexual abuse material, which is usually in digital format.
City prosecutors used a network of street surveillance cameras to track Mattman’s movements in a busy apartment he rented in an area on the east side of the city. Tall and red-haired, the Dutchman stood out in the field.
Once the police obtained the search warrant, only then came the Hindu; A Black Lab trained by Todd Jordan at his Jordan Detection K9 Academy in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Triphenylphosphine oxide is a chemical used to prevent overheating in small solid-state memory devices. Its distinctive smell is enough for dogs to detect it.
Jordan began training accelerator detection dogs to look for evidence in cases of potential arson where an accelerator may have been used; For example gasoline.
But the electronics-sniffing dogs they’ve trained, which now number 83, are growing in demand as criminals now use USB sticks to store everything from contacts to cryptocurrencies.
“I think electronics detection dogs have overtaken accelerator detection dogs because they are needed and the way the world is right now,” Jordan said. “Everyone, every Internet crime task force can use one of these.”
Hidu was new to the job; He had just graduated two weeks ago and this was his first affair. In fact, it was the first foreign case that a Jordanian dog had.
Operation Underground Railroad traveled with Hidu and his coach to Mexico City, where prosecutors were to search the apartment.
“From what I understand, there was a phone hidden in the laundry basket that smelled bad; You know, dirty clothes in a corner that nobody went in,” Osborne said. “The dog got that phone.”
Osborne said that Hindu found more child pornography material taped to a wall behind a painting. “The dog sniffed a pair of hard drives in some places in his apartment that were difficult for humans to find, but the dog sniffed them.”
Prosecutors said the discs and devices contained about 4 terabytes of child sex abuse material.
Prosecutor Godoy credits Operation Underground Railroad and Hindu for his help with the operation.
“Message to those who attack a girl, a boy, a teen: There is no place for impunity in Mexico City, those who hurt or assault them will be searched, prosecuted and punished.” Will go,” Godoy insisted.
Despite the arrest, some questions remain unanswered.
“Why (Maatman) was not included in an international search list?”, asked Hölsken, by Dutch authorities.
