One of the World’s Most Wanted Pedophiles Has Been Arrested

One of the world’s most wanted pedophiles, who abused dozens of children between the ages of two and 16, has been captured and jailed for close to 50 years after Australian authorities tracked him down to a COVID-19 quarantine facility in Malaysia.

For at least 14 years, Alladin Lanim was found to have sexually abused dozens of children in a sleepy, seaside town called Lundu in Sarawak, Malaysia. 

The 40-year-old man posted his heinous activities on the dark web and boasted on message boards about recording his acts, according to a detailed report published by the Sydney Morning Herald. Using an anonymous online profile, he was also said to have been sharing child abuse material online since 2007, and had been linked to more than 1,000 images and videos depicting sexual abuse of minors.

“He was so prolific with so many victims, that’s why he became a high priority,” Daniel Burnicle, a detective sergeant from the Australian Federal Police (AFP), told the Australian newspaper from Kuala Lumpur. 

Analysis conducted by Australian victim identification specialists initially identified a total of 34 victims who had been abused by Alladin, but authorities warned that the actual number may be higher. 

Officials on the case, trawling through records and hundreds of images, made a breakthrough last year and came across a possible image of Alladin. He was finally apprehended and jailed last month following a painstaking two-year international investigation by Australian and Malaysian authorities. “It’s just a slow, methodical burn,” 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.”

Alladin was apprehended at a COVID-19 isolation facility on July 5 while serving out a mandatory quarantine after returning to Sarawak, and charged with 18 counts of molesting five boys on a plantation and inducing them to watch pornographic videos by offering to let them play a mobile game on his phone. Malaysian police also say that they are pursuing one more case of child abuse involving Alladin.

He pleaded guilty in court in the state capital Kuching, and was jailed for 48 years and six months and sentenced to 15 strokes of the cane. 

In a statement provided to VICE World News on Monday, AFP commander Warwick Macfarlane said the cross-border investigation that led to Alladin’s arrest was an indication that the pandemic had not obstructed transnational policing efforts, and that authorities around the world were still working tirelessly to combat the exploitation and abuse of children.

Alladin’s arrest is the latest in a string of recent child exploitation busts by Australian authorities, following the AFP’s involvement in cracking open a global pedophile ring last year. A spokesperson told VICE World News last September that the amount of child abuse material being shared on the dark web appeared to be increasing, and that some sites hosting online child sex abuse material had crashed due to the overwhelming amount of internet traffic.

In Malaysia, reports of Alladin’s arrest shook the country – prompting outrage online about how a serial pedophile was able to operate in the country, undetected, for so long. Others referenced the case of another convicted pedophile, British man Richard Huckle – who had sexually abused scores of children in various communities in Kuala Lumpur, where he lived – and decried the laid-back reaction of authorities.

“Local authorities need to step up their game,” one Malaysian tweeted. Another wrote: “We have high profile pedophiles arrested by foreign police at least twice now. If this were left to us, these pedos would be scot free and happily ravaging new victims.”

Responding to news of Alladin’s capture by Australian police, Malaysian women’s minister Fatimah Abdullah said her ministry would better protect children against pedophiles and would continue educating not just children but also their parents.

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