The public prosecutor’s office of East Flanders confirms it Newspaper that GR, the Ghent resident who in the past posed as ‘Eveline’ online to obtain nude photos and videos of BVs, was recently arrested again by the police. An investigating judge must still consider his possible further arrest. In that case, it would be the third time that the man in his thirties has ended up behind bars for similar offences.
R.’s modus operandi is always the same. He poses as a woman on social media platforms, approaches victims with sexual messages and nude photos of foreign models, and thus elicits nude images from them. That technique becomes catfishing named. In October 2020, nude photos and videos of Peter Van de Veire, Stan Van Samang and Sean Dhondt suddenly started doing the rounds on social media. They turned out to have been lured into a trap by R.
The then 27-year-old student was eventually arrested at his room in Ghent, after an investigation by the Federal Computer Crime Unit. He made confessions and was released under strict conditions.
Conditions violated
The council chamber considered the file in April last year, but the defense then submitted a first petition for additional investigation. While the investigation was ongoing, the man was arrested again at the end of November last year. The man is said to have shifted his territory to the Netherlands, where he operated under the name ‘Ariana’. He was in prison for several months, but was released again in March this year under strict conditions.
According to it, he has those conditions Newspaper now violated again. R. has reportedly again approached men with sexually suggestive messages. His lawyers told the Belga news agency that they could not confirm this. No new official complaints have yet been filed.
Child pornography
In May of this year, the investigation was fully completed and ready for court. The public prosecutor’s office wants to prosecute R. for forgery in computer science, distribution without consent of sexually explicit recordings, harassment, extortion, voyeurism and possession of child pornography. Among about a thousand nude photos, investigators also found several images of minors.
However, the man’s defense submitted a new request for additional investigation, causing the council chamber to postpone the case. That request was rejected. The case would normally come before the council chamber on Monday, November 13, which might have requested a referral to the criminal court. “But in view of the arrest, the hearing of the council chamber has now been postponed indefinitely,” the public prosecutor’s office said Newspaper.
In addition to R., the public prosecutor’s office also wants to prosecute a 26-year-old co-suspect from Antwerp. He is said to have been involved in the distribution of the photos.
