Cyber crime victims seek police intervention

Dec 14, 2015 News

– as more altered photographs appear on local porn site

By Romila Boodram
Every time she meets someone, Emma (not her real name) wonders if they’ve seen her naked.
Nude photos of her dot the internet, still popping up years after an ex-boyfriend posted them on a local porn site to seek revenge.

A snapshot of the pornographic site

Revenge porn is when people post explicit images of ex-partners online, to humiliate them following a break-up.
Emma, 28, says her naked pictures have been on a number of websites and social media sites. It started with a man she sarcastically calls “Mr. Hot-butt.”
She met him in 2010 and the pair dated briefly. During the course of the relationship, nude photographs were exchanged.
It has been five years and those photographs are still being circulated- moving from one local pornographic site to another.
“I ended the relationship and he was upset and that’s when he started posting my pictures online,” Emma related.
The pictures first appeared on a site called, www.Guyanaxxx.com and now it is on www.Guyanaporn.com.
According to Emma, when she was first informed about her pictures being on a pornographic site, she reported the matter to the police but nothing was done at that time.
Today, years later, she wonders if the police can do anything, since the man at the center of the allegation, migrated three years ago.
Several persons have suffered similar fates.
In August last, a Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara (ECD) woman said that a man who had befriended her on a social media website in May, downloaded pictures of her, photo-shopped them and posted the pictures to a local pornographic site, www.Guyanaporn.com.
Thirty-three other women, including teenagers around Guyana have also reported that they too have had the same experience.
Some say that their pictures were stolen from social media sites including Facebook and Instagram and their faces were cropped and placed on nude bodies.
Two senior police officials had confirmed that the complaints were received but to date an update cannot be given.
It is unclear whether any of investigation was done.
One police official had said that the matter was brought to his attention in early May.
“One young lady came into us and said that her pictures were not only stolen and posted on the site, but they were also photo-shopped onto a nude body,” the police official said.
He added, “The young lady told us that she suspects an individual and she provided us with photographs and a telephone number for that person, but when we tried to contact the individual, his phone was turned off.”
This information was also given to the Crime Chief, Wendell Blanhum a while back.
These incidents come at a time when Guyana is moving to get in line with the rest of the world with regard to tackling cyber crime.