MAN SENTENCED FOR DIGITAL TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS AND RAPE OF HIS MINOR CHILDREN
09 JUNE 2025
MAN SENTENCED FOR DIGITAL TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS AND RAPE OF HIS MINOR CHILDREN
Paarl, South Africa, The Paarl Regional Court has sentenced a father of three minor children to an effective 35-year direct imprisonment and ordered him to serve two-thirds of his sentence before he can be eligible to be considered for parole. The court further ordered his name to be entered into the National Register for Sexual Offenders, the National Child Protection Register and declared him unfit to work with children in terms of Section 120(4)(a) of the Children’s Act, No. 38 of 2005 and unfit to possess a firearm term of Section 103 of the Firearms Control Act, No. 60 of 2000.
The court convicted the 27 years old accused on two counts of trafficking in persons for online exploitation, four counts of rape of two minor children, three counts of using children for or benefiting from child pornography, 629 counts of possession of child pornography, three counts of unlawful and intentional distribution of child pornography and three counts of child abuse. The court sentenced the accused to a total of 195 years but ordered most of the sentences to run concurrently.
The State does not name the accused as he committed the heinous crimes against his minor children, two girls aged six and four years and his one-year-old son. The State and the accused, to facilitate the children from secondary victimisation, finalised the matter by way of a plea and sentencing agreement. The accused got married to the mother of his children on 04 March 2018. He was unemployed and stayed home to take care of the minor children. He subscribed to a social media application with instant messaging, where one can transmit and receive messages, photos, and videos. Users can communicate privately with other users or in groups. The social media platform users can send photographs taken within the application, which indicates to other users that a picture was taken in real time and not imported from a camera roll.
He decided to create child pornography for financial gain, as the conversion rate at the time was $18 to the rand. He connected with the group after the administrative user approved his access to the group, and he started to communicate with the administrative user. The accused admitted that he started making child pornographic content of his biological children that he intended to share with random people online in exchange for a monetary reward. He claims that he created an unknown amount of child pornography material depicting his three biological children. He confessed that in the chats with the administrative user, he shared child pornographic images and videos of his biological minor children and sold an unknown amount of child pornography to unknown users for $5 to $10.
He was arrested after an online undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Task Force Officer assigned to the Washington Field Office (WFO) as part of the FBI Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, operating of a satellite office in Washington, DC, acted as the administrative user of the group on social media application forwarded information about his activities to the South African Police Service (SAPS) for further investigation on 22 December 2022. He was arrested on 30 May 2023, and police confiscated his cellphone, which he used to commit the crimes against his minor children.
Senior State Adv Evadne Kortje, who finalised the plea and sentencing agreement, said the accused contributed to the sexualisation of children, whose innocence should have been protected and preserved at all costs. He communicated and joined the social media application to connect with individuals interested in child pornography. He downloaded child pornography from other unknown collectors and other hands-on child sexual abuse offenders. He abused his parental privilege and the trust relationship that he had towards his three small children. Regional court Magistrate, Gangadu, emphasised the inescapable reality of the increasing prevalence of the abuse of modern technology that is available to enhance our lives, to exploit our children.
Western Cape Director of Public Prosecutions, Adv. Nicolette Bell welcomed the sentence, saying these types of crimes indicate that we need to make every day a child protection day to ensure that the most vulnerable within our society are protected. She added that the fight against the scourge of sexual violence, especially against children and digital trafficking in children, needs to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. It is for this reason that the NPA has dedicated prosecutors who deal with these types of crimes. She commended the current collaborative working relationship between international law enforcement agencies and SAPS, FCS- Serial and Electronic Crimes Investigation Unit (SECI).
Issued by:
Eric Ntabazalila
National Prosecuting Authority
Regional Communications Manager – Western Cape
Tel: (021) 487 7308
Mobile: 073 062 1222