The court matter against Darren Wilken, the man who was recently arrested after he was found in possession of 10 million images of child pornography has been postponed to January 27 following his appearance before the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Monday.
His matter was however, deferred to next Monday, to allow the police to investigate money laundering charges after he was reportedly found with more than R560,000 at his home during a take-down operation last Friday.
State Prosecutor Given Mbedzi requested the postponement saying it was important to investigate and ascertain the origins of the money, which has been alleged to be from the possible proceeds of the sale of the illegal visual material.
“The State requests a postponement as it needs to investigate this amount of money to strengthen its allegation of money laundering. Since the accused was arrested on [Friday], I submit that the state did not have ample opportunity to verify the allegations of money laundering. If the court grants the state the seven-day postponement, the charges will have been verified.”
However, this was rejected by the defence with Wilken’ss lawyer saying: "My colleague conceded that the state does not know whether there was money laundering…the allegation of schedule five must be triggered by satisfactory information.”
Friday’s operation was led by Major General Mmantsheke Lekhele, the Component Head for Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offences (FCS) with investigators from the national and Gauteng provincial Serial and Electronic Crime Investigations (SECI) units who subsequently executed a search-and-seizure warrant.
According to National SAPS spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Amanda van Wyk, investigators confiscated several electronic devices suspected to contain child sexual abuse material.
“A forensic analysis of these devices was conducted on scene by cyber-crime experts, an estimated number of 10 million child pornography images and videos were detected thus far,” said Van Wyk on Friday.
Reacting to the court proceedings, NPA regional spokesperson, Phindi Mjonondwane said the state feels strongly about the prospects of its case.
“There are prospects of a successful prosecution hence the NPA has taken the decision to institute criminal proceedings in this case,” she said.
On the state’s decision on bail against Wilken, the NPA said it had not made a determination as they are still investigating the source of the money found at Wilken’s premises.
“We are still trying to finalise the investigation process in relation to the bail application hearing and we are not yet, as the state, at a stage where we can say we are opposing bail. However, we have requested a seven-day postponement from the court so that we can conclude investigations in relation to the bail application that the accused wants to bring,” she added.