Peter Baruch - Hunt for minors in social networks

By Zulfiya Bainekeeva

Peter Baruch. Photo:Uralskaya NedelyaSeven victims of 38y.o. British national Peter Baruch, suspected in corruption of minors, are from Atyrau.

The parents of the girls filed police statements and now in Baruch’s criminal case there are 13 evidences.

To recall, on January 14, the police of Uralsk conducted investigative measures in Chagala hotel in Uralsk where the suspect resided temporarily. In the materials recovered from his laptop ,cameras and flash cards the nude photos of 12-13 y.o girls were recovered. Part of those images he destroyed when the police raided the hotel.

It is supposed that the 6^th form girl, whose mother reported to the police about the correspondence of her daughter with an adult man, informed him about the police raid.

On February 10, the city court of Uralsk satisfied the petition for arrest and Baruch was put into custody for 2 months.

The investigation team identified that some of the girls were from Atyrau, where Baruch worked before and also frequently visited Atyrau after moving to Uralsk. On February 24, the investigation team from Uralsk arrive d to Atyrau to collect the statements from the parents.

- “The parents were absolutely shocked. They never suspected such things from their children,”- said over the phone our source from Uralsk.  

So, Baruch's case has another 7 episodes. All 13 facts are investigated under one criminal case. So far, there are girls from Uralsk and Atyrau, but Baruch freely moved around the country and often visited Almaty. The police are investigating if there were victims from other cities.

– How many girls are there on the images?

– There are hundreds and hundreds -  a lot of pictures.

– Does this mean that he was taking pictures of minors for several years?

– “We don't know, so far we have the facts for 2013 only. The work is complicated with the fact that on some photos there are the images of genitals only without faces,” -  said the source.

Peter Baruch is charged with two articles of the Criminal Code of Kazakhstan: Article 273 -  ”Production and distribution of child pornography” and engaging minors in pornographic events” and article 124, part 3  - “Corruption of minors repeatedly perpetrated”.

The age of the victim girls are from 12 to 17. He paid 5 to 15 thousand tenge for those “sessions”. Baruch was easily getting acquainted with the girls in social networks.