Another foreigner is captured for sexual crimes against minors committed in Medellin


From https://www.elcolombiano.com/medellin/capturado-extranjero-por-delitos-sexuales-cometidos-en-medellin-LC22201875

The man had a facade as a businessman in the tourism sector.

When he was trying to board a plane back to the United States, a US citizen was captured by the police at the El Dorado airport in Bogotá, accused of committing sexual crimes against minors under 18 years of age in Medellín.

According to the NGO Valientes Colombia, the man operated for months using the facade of a tourist businessman with which he contacted minors through digital platforms to whom he then made offers or intimidated them to sexually exploit them. The man was left in the hands of the Prosecutor's Office and must now answer for the crimes of human trafficking, sexual acts with a minor under 18 years of age and child pornography.

This is the fifth arrest of a foreign citizen this year accused of committing sexual crimes against minors in Medellín. In addition, there have been two convictions, in United States territory, of citizens of that country when the existence of human trafficking networks and sexual crimes against minors under 18 years of age in the capital of Antioquia were demonstrated.

One of those cases was that of Herbert Fletcher, a 42-year-old American citizen, married with children, who worked in his family's business in Philadelphia, but who had a double life when he traveled to Medellín for long periods and became a a sexual predator and exploiter.

Fletcher, convicted last June, posed for several years with impunity as a successful businessman with his office in El Poblado and with alleged interests in the construction sector. It was like this until June 2019 when the authorities began to investigate Víctor Galarza, a man whose fame in Medellín was already notorious, as a wealthy eccentric with dark businesses. Galarza's business was the sexual exploitation of minors in the capital of Antioquia, whom he recorded without consent and then sold the material to pornography platforms such as Pornhub, Xvideos, Spankmonkey and Manyvids.

Galarza was captured in New York in October 2019. As part of a huge transnational operation, six other people, including Fletcher, were captured in Medellín, accused of belonging to a giant network of pornography and sexual crimes involving the Pornhub platform. who faces a process in a California court for benefiting financially from the commercialization of videos containing sexual assault and exploitation, a lawsuit that is supported by the testimonies of more than 100 women in different countries who are victims of these crimes, a case that exploded in 2020 due to a New York Times investigation.

In May, Michael Wayne Roberts, 41, a professor accused of illicit sexual conduct in foreign places, had been captured and sentenced by the judge of the Western District of Texas to seven years in prison and another ten years of probation.

These arrests and convictions have occurred while the Medellín Mayor's Office receives strong criticism from human rights organizations, the Medellín Council and other instances for its lack of a clear policy against the sexual exploitation of women, girls and adolescents in the midst of the growing tourist wave that crosses Medellín.

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