PARIS — He apparently traveled the world sexually abusing young boys, but remained unidentifiable — until now.
Police in Europe have unscrambled digitally altered images found on the Internet to reveal the face of a man shown abusing boys in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Interpol released four reconstructed photos of the suspected pedophile Monday in a public appeal for help, hoping that someone, somewhere, will recognize the man whose identity and nationality remain a mystery.
Interpol said 12 boys, apparently ranging in age from 6 to their early teens, appeared in about 200 photographs posted on the Internet. But the face of the man inflicting the abuse was disguised in a digital whirl.
Using techniques that neither they nor Interpol would discuss, German police produced identifiable images of the man from the original pictures. The reconstructed photos showed a white man who looked to be in his 30s, with uncombed short brown hair. One showed him wearing glasses, in another he smiled, and another showed that he has a hairy chest.
Interpol posted the images on its Web site.
Anders Persson, a police officer who oversees Interpol’s database of images of child abuse, said releasing the photos sent “a quite clear message” to criminals that they can be identified through Web postings.
The 12 boys have not been located, Persson said.
Interpol had already circulated photos of the man to police around the world but failed to identify him.
“For years, images of this man sexually abusing children have been circulating on the Internet. We have tried all other means to identify and to bring him to justice, but we are now convinced that without the public’s help, this sexual predator could continue to rape and sexually abuse young children,” Interpol’s secretary general, Ronald Noble, said in a statement.
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