20 people found dead on boat drifting in Turks and Caicos

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos — A boat was found drifting about a mile off Grand Turk island with 20 dead people on board, including two children, authorities in the Turks and Caicos Islands said Sunday.

Officials said investigators had ruled out foul play but were still trying to determine what happened. The identities and origin of the dead were also under investigation.

Fishermen spotted the small boat Thursday morning and alerted the marine branch of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force, who towed the vessel ashore.

The police communications officer, Takara Bain, said in a news release that investigators had discounted foul play and were looking at other possibilities, without giving any specifics.

Police Commissioner Trevor Botting said the boat appeared to have come from outside the Caribbean and authorities did not think it had the Turks and Caicos as its destination.

“My investigators are working to establish their identities and how they met their death,” Botting said.

The Turks and Caicos are often a magnet fordesperate Haitians seeking to flee that poverty-stricken nation and the territory also has been used as a transshipment point by human traffickers.

In June 2020, Sri Lanka-born Canadian citizen Srikajamukam Chelliah pleaded guilty to human trafficking charges before a Turks and Caicos judge and was sentenced to 14 months in prison. He was extradited to Florida and sentenced Feb. 24 to 32 months in prison for conspiring to smuggle people into the United States.

Chelliah had been caught in August 2019 skippering a boat carrying 158 people, including 28 Sri Lankans. They told investigators they were bound for the United States.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/20-people-found-dead-boat-drifting-turks-caicos-n1272543

Pandemic blamed for rise in child pornography in Thailand

Last year Thai police received nearly170,000tip-offs from locals about pornographic content featuring children

Thai police have made a breakthrough in combating child pornography produced and distributed in the country by arresting the administrator of a website featuring underage girls and vulnerable young women.

Authorities raided the home of the 28-year-old man, identified only as Olarn, in Tak province in northern Thailand on June 28.

Police say the man admitted having run a website called VK Sanoh Sortaling on VK, a Russian social media and networking platform with around 500 million users worldwide.

The Thai man’s website had more than 100,000 followers and featured a secret online group where users could view pornographic content featuring underage girls for 300 baht (US$10), according to authorities.

Police said they had discovered more than 100,000 files with pornographic content featuring females, both children and adults, on the computer and mobile phone of the suspect, who has been charged with possessing and distributing child pornography for sexual and commercial purposes.

The production and distribution of pornographic materials involving children remains a problem in Thailand, a country long known for its freewheeling sexual mores.

In January, a 44-year-old Israeli man was arrested in Bangkok and charged with the illegal possession of pornographic material involving children.

Thai police launched an investigation after Israel’s embassy in Bangkok had notified authorities that the man was likely engaged in the sexual abuse of children.

In the same month, a South Korean man, who had been wanted by Interpol for posting obscene pictures of children on the internet, was arrested on the southern Thai island of Phuket.

Meanwhile, in February, a 28-year-old Thai man, who ran a child model agency in Pathum Thani, a province bordering Bangkok, was arrested for producing and distributing pornographic content involving underage boys.

https://www.ucanews.com/news/pandemic-blamed-for-rise-in-child-pornography-in-thailand/93064#

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https://www.ucanews.com/news/cynical-internet-providers-complicit-in-child-abuse-through-inaction/93052