In January 2023, Google disabled the Gmail account of a man called Victor James Raja in Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur. “It looks like this account has content that involves a child being sexually abused or exploited. This is a severe violation of Google’s policies and might be illegal. If you think your account was disabled by mistake, submit an appeal as soon as possible,” a pop-up message on his screen said. Victor, worried about the implications, formatted his phone soon in an attempt to cover his digital tracks.
But unknown to him, Google had also sent an alert to an organisation working to prevent and address sexual crimes against children. And so did another company, Grindr, which runs a dating app. The electronic alerts led to what turned into a detailed Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation, and the conviction of a man who had sexually assaulted six children — four of whom were under the age of 10.
Less than two months later, in early March 2023, an IPS officer, who was serving as the Superintendent of Police in the Special Crime-III unit of the CBI, received a tip-off from the international child sexual exploitation database (ICSE) of the INTERPOL about 36-year-old Victor, and that he might be engaged in making and exchanging child sexual abuse material (CSAM). ICSE is an intelligence and investigative tool, which allows specialised investigators to share data on cases of child sexual abuse, using which investigators can instantly find the victims, abusers, and the places where CSAM is being made or shared.
The CBI joined ICSE in 2022 as part of a select group of agencies from 67 countries. It is through this database that the CBI was able to find Victor and his house in Thanjavur. Victor was a PhD scholar in a private college and had got featured in a Tamil magazine as an organic farmer.
What the CBI found was however more dire. Victor was not only sharing videos, he had sexually assaulted children, recorded videos, and was blackmailing the children. After an investigation that went on for about a year, the man was convicted on July 9, 2024 by a special POCSO court in Thanjavur that sentenced him to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 6.5 lakh.