Richard Huckle, 30 year old, British citizen from Ashford in Kent is facing 71 count charges after he was believed to have abused up to 200 children, aged between six months and 12 years. He carried out the act between 2006-2014.
Huckle, a Christian had travelled to Malaysia for a teaching gap year when he was between 18 and 19 years old. While he Malaysia, Huckle was reported to have abused more than 23 children in a poor community in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Huckle, who seems to be enjoying the barbaric act, wrote a manual for other paedophiles and it was called; "Paedophiles And Poverty: Child Lover Guide", a book where he wrote the details of his sex acts and rapes.
Investigators also uncovered more than 20,000 photos and videos he took while abusing the children, and they were all stored on his computer. He was ready to publish the book on the dark web, encrypted it for his other paedophiles.
In one of the charge, Huckle had said "I'd hit the jackpot, a 3yo girl as loyal to me as my dog and nobody seemed to care."
Huckle explores the vulnerability of the poor kids, he will feed them, take them out, teach them English, and later gained their trust, and that of their parents. Huckle was also teaching English, and according to one of his victims, Huckle took a picture of her while she was naked.
How The Men Were Arrested
Police in Australia and Europe were awared of the website, Love Zone, hidden in the dark web. The website was protected by passwords, encryption and other specialist software, and users on this websites were totally anonymous.
Images and videos on this website were very disturbing, and members had to post regularly to remain on the website.
The Task force Argos in Australia have noticed that the administrator of this website uses a particular greeeting "Hiyas". After a long time of searching for forums on the open internet and other social media websites, the task force found a Facebook user with the same greeting.
Although the Facebook page was fake, the officer noticed a vehicle in one of the images posted by the man, who was later identified as Shannon McCoole, a child care worker in Adelaide, Australia.
When officers ran through his door, the man was at the time running the website.
In the many pictures posted by McCoole, officers had noticed a freckle on one of his fingers, so when they apprehended the man in his house, they took a detailed photograph of the hands, and saw that it matches the same hand in the pictures posted on the website.
Last year, the man with freckles and "Hiyas" was sent to spend 35 years in prison.
Huckle Arrest
When McCoole was arrested, the task force took charge of the website on the dark web, and noticed that one of the users who stood out from the thousands of users is Huckle.
After monitoring his postings, and compare to other social media activities, the task force was able to identify the man behind the computer.
Officers later get to know that Huckle would be travelling to the UK for Christmas in 2014, and that was when the Britain's National Crime Agency were tipped off about his visit.
As he landed at Gatwick international airport, he was welcomed by men from the NCA's Child Exploitation and Online Protection command. On his computer, officers found obscene videos and images.