New Zealand Police crack down on child exploitation

Child sex tourists are being warned they will end up in court after an Auckland man was found guilty of organising a tour to Thailand in a landmark case. The 47 year old man is the first person in New Zealand to be found guilty of the charge.

This came as a result of a two-year long operation involving the Online Child Exploitation Across New Zealand (OCEANZ) team, the Police Undercover Programme, Counties-Manukau Child Protection team and the New Zealand Customs Service.

Acting on information, the OCEANZ team established an investigation which uncovered a web site promoting tours to Thailand for people seeking sex with young boys.
An undercover Police Officer then made contact with the man through the website. The man made flight arrangements for himself and the undercover officer to travel to Thailand, where he had agreed to facilitate young boys for sex.

Detective Senior Sergeant John Michael, officer in charge of OCEANZ, said this was a successful cross-agency operation which established that this insidious type of exploitation was being conducted out of New Zealand.

“We work closely with our partner agencies both in New Zealand and internationally on cracking down on this type of exploitation,” said Mr Michael.

“People who engage in this horrible kind of abuse of young children must be stopped. We find this type of offensive behaviour involves people from more affluent nations travelling to poorer countries where children are exploited for financial gain.”

The man has been convicted of organising an underage sex tour but was found not guilty of promoting the tour.

For more information on this investigation, visit the New Zealand Police website.