Singapore-based paedophile Boris Kunsevitsky who abused dozens of boys across Asia kept photos in file called ‘Jailbait’
- Boris Kunsevitsky, 52, admits preying on children in the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Australia
- He was active from the early 2000s until his eventual arrest in 2017, after one of his victims came forward
The heavily redacted documents provided to the South China Morning Post by the court list all 59 charges that Kunsevitsky pleaded guilty to. They include maintaining a sexual relationship with a child, engaging in sexual intercourse with a child outside Australia, inducing a child to engage in sex with another child, and child pornography charges.
Of the charges, 47 pertain to individual victims with 25 being children outside Australia – five from Singapore, one from Indonesia and the rest from the Philippines.
“[He] travelled regularly to the Philippines and to Indonesia, with most of the offending occurring in the Philippines. Often his trips to these Asian countries were brief and the arrival date coincided with the commencement of the offending,” prosecutor Krista Breckweg was quoted as saying in the court transcript dated May 20.
During one trip to the Philippines in 2008 detailed by Breckweg, Kunsevitsky took 71 photographs and made 13 videos of himself performing sex acts on two 13-year-olds – including while they were asleep.
German police had flagged Kunsevitsky with Australian Federal Police that same year, after it was discovered he had shared 55 pornographic images of a child – identified as CM – using collaboration software Microsoft Office Groove.
In 2016, CM came forward to report the abuse – which had occurred in Melbourne between January 2004 and October 2005 – but Australian police were unable to arrest Kunsevitsky until he left Singapore, where he was based, and attempted to visit Australia a year later.
When he got off the plane in Sydney, officers found enough child pornography on Kunsevitsky’s electronic devices to hold him, yet at that stage only had information about the crimes he had committed in Australia.
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Further investigations led police to a shipping container of his personal belongings, which contained “considerable evidence relating to additional offending occurring overseas”.
“He kept images and videos of all of his encounters with the various victims,” Breckweg, the prosecutor, told the court. “Most of the images were saved in a folder titled, ‘Jailbait’. In that folder there were sub-folders that largely appear to relate to victim names.”
More than 50,000 items were found on Kunsevitsky’s devices, including thousands of images and videos, much of it created by him. Some videos were more than 42 minutes long and depicted graphic footage of sex acts on children, according to court records.
According to The Age newspaper, the Melbourne victim identified as CM, who is now in his 20s, told the Supreme Court he had been “conditioned” to believe Kunsevitsky was the only person who cared for him.
He told the court he was left confused, isolated from family and friends and feeling betrayed, and eventually turned to drugs and developed psychological problems that led to a suicide attempt.
“I lost almost everything and everyone in my life and this has been truly catastrophic,” he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
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Kunsevitsky’s lawyer, Ian Crisp, disputed the seriousness of the abuse on CM as well as the age of some of the other victims. He claimed those in the Philippines were “simulating” pain in the videos, The Age reported.
Singapore beauty supplements company Esthemedica confirmed that it had employed Kunsevitsky but said it did not know of his “appalling” acts.
He joined the company in 2014 and was still employed by it when he left for Australia abruptly in July 2017, Singapore-based English-language news website TodayOnline reported.
Kunsevitsky was abused as a child in his native country of Russia, according to The Age. He migrated to Australia at age 12 with his family and was diagnosed with a paedophile disorder after his arrest. He is expected to be sentenced at a later date.
