Swedish man charged with child sex in Haiti

A 67-year-old Swedish man was charged with a score of child sex allegations in Haiti where he worked under the guise of an organization that purports to help street children.

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According to reports, the abuse occurred in both Haiti and Germany.

The man was charged along with two other men.

All three are members of a relief organization that proclaims to help street children and, amongst other things, operate an orphanage in disaster-riddled Haiti.

The man was arrested in Berlin, where he worked as teacher for a decade.

According to Björn Sellström, a criminal inspector for the child pornography group with the National Police (Rikskriminalpolisen), the 67-year-old is not known by police in Sweden.

"We have no information on him. However, we are interested in what our German colleagues arrived at and if the man has some Swedish contacts," Bjorn Sellström told the TT news agency.

The inspector says that it is impossible to generalize too much about paedophiles’ approach, but there are often a couple of common denominators in cases of internationally active paedophiles.

For example, he was not surprised to learn that 67-year-old may have preyed upon boys in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

“Paedophiles are drawn to poor areas where there are children, where there is a market,” Sellström said to the TT.

Another common denominator is the international networks.

The 67-year-old was arrested along with a German and a Brazilian man.

"It is a borderless activity to find like-minded people all over the world," said Sellström.

Although difficult to determine an exact figure, a 2009 study estimated that Swedes buy sex from children abroad between 3,000 and 5,000 times per year.