Porn crackdown at Aussie airports nets 19
THE crackdown on porn at Australian airports which resulted in the arrest of a Singapore Airlines pilot last Saturday, has netted 19 people since January last year.
Two others ? another Singaporean and a Malaysian Airlines pilot ? were also arrested in the last one week.
The crackdown appears to be confined to Australia, although arrests have been made from time to time elsewhere.
On Tuesday, for example, Italian police arrested a 55-year-old university professor after he stepped off a plane from Bangkok at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport. The arrest was part of a country-wide crackdown on child pornography.
In Dubai last November, a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) deejay was arrested for allegedly carrying pornographic DVDs into the country.
The Australian action appears to be a concerted effort aimed at stopping the smuggling of pornography into the country via Adelaide, according to a statement on the country's Customs website.
The website quoted Australian Customs national manager of investigations, Richard Janeczko, as saying the department was seeing an increase in interceptions of objectionable pornography at the border.
Meanwhile, the SIA pilot at the centre of the porn storm, Captain Ng Kok Yauw, has arrived back in Singapore.
The father of two has been suspended by the airline pending investigations.
He was charged by Australian authorities on Monday and fined A$12,000 (RM35,000).
He pleaded guilty and paid the fine. ? The Straits Times / Asia News Network
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