Christopher Paul Neil

Neil appeared in more than 200 photographs depicting child sexual abuse, which surfaced on the Internet and led to a worldwide manhunt known as Operation Vico. Neil's face had been obscured by a digital swirl in the photographs, but German computer experts at the Federal Criminal Police Office were able to reconstruct the original picture using techniques similar to that used by Neil, but in reverse.[10]

Several of these reconstructed pictures were posted on Interpol's website and led to more than 350 people contacting the organization, five of whom identified the man as Neil. Neil was working as an English teacher at Kwangju Foreign School in the city of Gwangju,[11] South Korea, at the time but fled with a one-way ticket to Thailand once he was publicly identified. He was arrested in the Nakhon Ratchasima Province, in the Isan region of northeast Thailand, on October 19, 2007.[12] Thai police reportedly located the fugitive by means of a trace on the mobile phone of his 25-year-old Thai partner, who was himself identified in the beach town of Pattaya.[13]

On January 11, 2008, the start of his trial was set for March 10. He pleaded not guilty.[14] On March 10 it was found that Neil did not have a lawyer. One was assigned to him and the trial was adjourned to June 2.[15] He was sentenced on August 15, 2008 to 39 months in prison and a $1,780 fine. His original sentence of six years was reduced by about half because he later admitted to the crime.[16][17] On November 24, 2008, his sentence was extended by six years following his conviction for molesting a second child.[5]

Thai police expanded the hunt for potential child sex offenders by publishing photographs of 50 Western suspects identified by international authorities, many of whom are German citizens. Other nationalities include British, Australian, Italian, Finnish and American.[28] On May 6, 2008, Interpol launched Operation IDent, its second public appeal to identify an unknown child abuse suspect,[29][30] who featured in almost 100 images showing the sexual abuse of at least three boys between six and ten years old.[31] Unlike Neil's case, there had been no apparent attempt to obscure the perpetrator's face in these images.[32] After authorities received more than 250 leads,[33][34] Wayne Nelson Corliss was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in New Jersey[31] and charged with producing child pornography. He admitted to raping three boys, and was denied bail.[32]