The District Court of Rodrigues has denied bail to Jean Dominique Farla, whom the Police considers the mastermind of the child pornography scandal on the island. 12 children have been identified on the clips but there are some 1000 more and police are working with Interpol on this matter.
Farla has already admitted that he has been dealing with obscene matters involving minors and blackmailing people but wanted to be admitted on bail.
But the magistrate Rishi Hardowar replied in his ruling that bail cannot be granted in that particular case.
The facts of the case go back to 26th July 2021 when Farla was arrested for a case of a larceny of a mobile phone. The latter had given the police his permission to examine his mobile phone which has been secured. Several pornographic, including child pornographic videos, were found and he has admitted being the producer of those videos together with other suspects and they used to share those videos on the internet.
Some of the persons from the video have been identified and not less than 12 cases of sexual abuse have been reported. Farla has admitted that he has created fake profiles on Facebook to lure the victims. He passed himself off as a fortune teller residing in Madagascar or other parts of the world. He would use his fake Facebook profiles and WhatsApp with foreign numbers to communicate with the alleged victims. The enquiry has revealed that he has used at least five foreign sim cards which were provided to him by friends living abroad. After having established a relationship of trust between him and the alleged victims, he would ask them to send indecent photographs and videos of themselves.
So far, the victims identified are twins aged 9 years and other young girls who were still minor at the time of the alleged offences. There are about one thousand videos and at least six victims who have been identified so far. The Police IT Unit are examining the other videos and their report is being awaited. The foreign phone numbers have been communicated to the Interpol for an enquiry to ascertain the identity of the persons who registered those sim cards. The IT Unit is also working with Facebook in relation to the fake profiles.
