NBI: Chat group sells sex with minors

By Ghio Ong (The Philippine Star), Aug 1, 2017

MANILA, Philippines – A human trafficking syndicate set up an online chat group to contact foreign and local clients for sex with minors, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said yesterday.

The syndicate can provide clients it contacts through its “Top Girls” chat group up to 25 girls at any given time, according to NBI agent-on-case Joselito Valle.

The syndicate has been recruiting girls from Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and Tondo in Manila and keep in touch with them by getting their contact numbers, he added.

The NBI found out about the chat group following a sting at a Caloocan resort last Thursday, when agents from the NBI’s anti-human trafficking division rescued 17 girls aged 13 to 17 from a “swimming party” and arrested alleged pimps Glady Dulot, 29, and Cherry Ann Lacano, 30.

An agent who posed as a client paid P6,000 in exchange for the sexual services of one of the girls.

Clients would pay P6,000 for every girl they choose and P1,000 for those they would not pick, according to initial findings by the NBI. The girl and the pimp would share the payments equally.

Some of the girls said they had been “sold” in the past, NBI spokesman Ferdinand Lavin told reporters yesterday.

The two women had been under surveillance for three months prior to their arrest, Valle said.

Dulot and Lascano denied the accusations, saying they did not know they were pimping the victims. It turned out, though, that they had also been subjects of a previous sting in May.

They were charged with human trafficking and child abuse before the Department of Justice.

The NBI would also seek the cooperation of the resort owner to find out if he was involved in the pimping stint, Lavin said.