New details are becoming known in the abuse complex in Wermelskirchen in the Bergisches Land. The accused Marcus R. is said to have set up his own system with an accomplice in Berlin in order to be able to abuse small children. R. is said to have even been involved in an act via live video.
The two men ignored the little boy’s cries of pain. While Sönke G. abused one of his foster children in Berlin, his friend from Wermelskirchen followed the abuse in a live chat via Skype. A “little bit of whining is always,” the Berlin tormentor commented on his victim’s tears to his chat partner. Whereupon Marcus R., an IT expert from Bergisch, incited him to new sexual assaults according to FOCUS online information from police reports.
The latter is considered a key figure in a monstrous abuse complex, the extent of which the Cologne investigators and the central and contact point for cybercrime (ZAC) at the local public prosecutor’s office cannot yet assess. So far 33 victims have been identified, the youngest was just a month old. There are also 73 suspects on the list of suspects. All chat partners of Markus R. arrested last December.
The childless husband exchanged numerous abuse files with other pedophile criminals via encrypted messenger services KIK, Skype and above all via qtox and fantasized about new tortures of little boys and girls in one-to-one discussion forums. Most of them were small children or infants.
Via messenger provider “qtox”, which boasts of “secure communication for everyone in the face of “expanding large-scale surveillance programs by some governments”, Marcus R. instructed his acquaintances how he should molest a small boy in the Berlin zoo. For two and a half years, the two child molesters are said to have come up with new perverse practices again and again. For example, according to the police, “rectal fever measurement in children”. Homemade abuse videos and pictures of the respective victims were also exchanged.
At times, Sönke G. feared that prosecutors could track him down because he could be seen on the abuse clips he had filmed himself. But his buddy from North Rhine-Westphalia reassured him by pointing out that he would never pass on the material sent and would also encrypt it.
After evaluating ten percent of the abuse data secured from the main actor in Wermelskirchen, twelve damaged children could already be identified.
On February 27, 2019, Marcus R. visited his friends on the Spree, according to FOCUS online information. He left one of his victims in the zoo to the IT professional to abuse him. The two men were particularly upset that the disabled boy had to wear a diaper.
The whole thing blew up when the Berlin lighting technician G. came to the hospital. Abuse files were discovered there on his cell phone. After an anonymous tip, the State Criminal Police Office arrested the man in his late 20s on August 4, 2021.
Gradually, the investigations brought to light a perfidious decoy model. Five years ago, the craftsman set up a profile on a private childcare platform. “Basically, I just want to offer my skills to deal well with children,” it said. On a babysitter site, the pedo criminal advertised his experience through several internships in day care centers. According to “t-online”, he also wanted to “support families to have as relaxed a family life as possible.” His rate of five euros an hour was well below the minimum wage. Many parents fell for the offer.
It also turned out that Sönke G. offered his services through a non-profit agency for handicapped children. In addition, two district offices are said to have sent him care cases. Disabled boys in particular stimulated his perverse fantasies. And he shared that with his friend in Wermelskirchen.
Because Sönke G. developed a kind of sexual fetish. He broke into a day care center to steal diapers. When the police caught him, he tried unsuccessfully to defend his loot with a gun. A process followed. G. got away with a minimal penalty. His deviant tendencies didn’t matter. Only after his horrible deeds became public did he receive a twelve-year prison sentence and subsequent preventive detention at the beginning of May.
In the course of the investigation, a soko from the Berlin LKA identified accomplices and chat partners via the huge, confiscated bundle of data in the child molester’s laptop. Although most of the contact persons had communicated with him by alias or abbreviation, the investigators also managed to decode a conspicuous incorrect personal data: the man operated under the synonym “Jan”. At first you couldn’t make sense of it. However, the chat histories showed which flights Jan took to his buddy in the federal capital for the purpose of joint abuse and which hotels he stayed in.
In this way, the Kripo officers identified several “cross-hits” through the travel data, which finally led to Marcus R. in Wermelskirchen, who also lured new victims with the babysitter scam.
As it turned out, the 44-year-old suspect could have been caught earlier. The police had already identified Marcus R. as a key figure in the case in a large abuse complex in Münster. However, since R. was acting under an alias, the investigators could not identify him at the time.
This circumstance is mainly due to the legal situation in this country. In the Münster case, the chats were mostly encrypted via the “Wire” messenger service. When the NRW authorities requested the IP address from the Swiss operator via a request for legal assistance in order to locate the unknown accomplice, they came up short.
Telecommunications services still do not have to keep their customers’ account data. However, some companies store this data for up to a week. Subsequent inquiries from the security authorities lead nowhere.
