Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah
KUCHING (Sept 5): Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah is grateful that joint collaboration between Australian police and Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) have led to the arrest and prosecution of paedophile Alladin Lanim, 40.
“I have been alerted on this paedophile case. I’m grateful that finally he (Alladin) was tracked down, prosecuted and punished for the hideous crime that he has committed.
“Congratulations to the excellent work by Australian Police and PDRM,” she said in her comments via a WhatsApp media chat group today in light of the case highlighted by The Sydney Morning Herald today.
The Sydney-based daily reported that the capture of Alladin might never have happened if not for the sleuthing of Australian police – specialist investigators from the Australian Federal Police, Queensland Police and the Australian Transactions Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac).
It reportedly said that Alladin had been on the authorities’ radar for two years, ever since a multi-national internal police report in 2019 listed his online alias as one of the top 10 offenders in the world in exploitation of children on the Internet.
According to the report, Alladin had been sharing child abuse material on the Internet since 2007 and been linked to more than 1,000 images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of minors.
Detective Sergeant Daniel Burnicle, the acting senior officer for the AFP in Kuala Lumpur was quoted as saying: “He (Alladin) was so prolific with so many victims, that’s why he became a high priority.”
Alladin has reportedly abused dozens of children, posted about his exploits on the dark web, and became one of global law enforcement’s most wanted child sex offenders.
He operated without detection, abusing children aged between two and 16 and boasting on messaging forums about recording his crimes for at least 14 years.
The Sydney Morning Herald said experts at the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation’s victim identification unit, however, made a breakthrough in August last year.
“The AFP-led operation, which includes members of Queensland Police’s Argus taskforce for child victim identification, came across a social media image of the man they suspected they were looking for.
“After sending the picture off to Malaysia, AFP officers in Kuala Lumpur and Royal Malaysia Police and United States Homeland Security investigators then raced to put a name to it, knowing all the while that more children could be in danger of abuse the longer the search went on,” said the The Sydney Morning Herald report.
Burnicle said: “They’re going through images trying to work out where that location may be so they can follow up. It’s all very difficult with the dark web to track people.”
“Eventually, a team at Austrac, the Australian government’s financial intelligence agency, was this year able to put together another key piece in the puzzle in concert with their counterparts.
“Crucially, as they trawled through financial and other records, they came across the same image as the one that had been forwarded to Kuala Lumpur from Australia months earlier, this time with identifying information attached,” added the report.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian investigators in July assisted in tracking Alladin to a state Covid-19 quarantine facility, where he was serving a mandatory period in isolation after returning to Sarawak following a trip to Peninsular Malaysia.
When Alladin completed his quarantine on July 5, Malaysian authorities were reportedly there waiting for him.
“Six weeks later, in court in the state capital Kuching, he pleaded guilty to 18 charges and was sentenced to 48 years in prison and 15 strokes of the cane.
“Local media said Lanim (Alladin) had molested children at a plantation and on the verandah of a house in Lundu and induced them to view pornographic material by letting them play a game on his phone.
“Australian investigators, who provided a package of material to prosecutors in Kuching, identified 34 victims he had abused but believe there may have been more,” pointed out the report.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia and Malaysia have a deep history in co-operation on security and policing, with the AFP office in Kuala Lumpur the agency’s oldest and approaching its 50th anniversary.
“It’s an association that has paid off in unmasking a predator and Assistant Commissioner Siti Kamsiah Hassan of PDRM’s Sexual, Women and Child Investigation Division is thankful for the help. She said Malaysian police would continue to protect minors ‘in spite of Covid-19’,” added the report.