by Victor Lavrinenko
[REGNUM] Latvian police have arrested a serial pedophile who abused a large number of children. However, this is not the first Latvian "pedophilegate": vile criminals of this kind have been caught in the republic before - and each time it was accompanied by a loud scandal.
The current pedophile turned out to be an employee of an educational institution; among his predecessors was a priest, and there were even rumors about ministers.
"CONSULTED" ON THE INTERNET
In August, Latvian police arrested a 36-year-old man who had committed sexual crimes against at least 180 children over eight years. His name has not yet been released. He worked at various educational institutions in the Zemgale region, and his former boss described the suspect as a "responsible, responsive, friendly and polite person."
Others who knew him described him as “inspiring and compassionate,” and a good father who loved to talk about his three children. No one had any idea what kind of demons were lurking behind that seemingly decent facade. “There was never any sign, not even a rumor about him,” one of the suspect’s colleagues said, bewildered.
It turned out that this guy had a "hobby": he would find underage girls and, using his communication skills, establish friendly relations with them. Then the villain would persuade these kids by hook or by crook to undress in front of a webcam.
Working remotely, outside the team, the pedophile could communicate with children for hours in online chats without risking being caught by colleagues. The offender recorded videos of naked children, creating pornographic materials, and then distributed them.
Between 2016 and 2024, he recorded at least 266 such videos. In total, at least 5,885 criminal files were found on him, containing both child abuse materials and scenes of human sexual activity with animals.
But it wasn't just videos: in 2016, the man sexually assaulted a minor who was left in his care. During the investigation, it turned out that the rapist was actively receiving "practical advice" online, which he then applied in real life.
In order to establish the identities of all the victims, the police had to put in a lot of effort - they received some help from Europol. And this is far from the first time that the Latvian police had to carry out work to catch pedophiles.
RIGA PERVERT
At one time, the exploits of the so-called "Imanta pedophile" made a lot of noise in Latvia. He received this nickname because he committed outrages in this particular district of Riga. In early 2014, several attacks were committed in Imanta on girls, whom the pedophile waited for in the elevators of apartment buildings and threatened with a gas pistol.
The victims were between eight and ten years old, and the crimes shook the entire city. The police had a DNA sample of the criminal, but it did not match any of those in the database. About a hundred men were detained for testing, but the culprit was never found among them.
The police then made a composite sketch of the criminal and introduced enhanced patrols in the neighborhood. Almost the entire male population of Imanta rose to their feet and also joined the patrols. After this, the attacks stopped for a while, and experts decided that the rapist had gone into hiding or had left the country.
However, in October of the same year, the criminal showed up again. In February 2015, the police reported that they had already checked 600 suspects in this case. In August, the culprit was finally arrested - twenty-year-old Nauris Piksteins. But apart from the name, little is known about the "Imanta pedophile" to this day.
In total, seven girls were named as victims in the case. Initially, it was said that the pedophile could receive a life sentence, but he was given twenty-five years. In addition to the prison term, Piksteins was ordered to pay compensation for moral damages to the victims in the amount of 67 thousand euros - and another 6 thousand euros to the state.
As the head of the Latvian Lawyers' Association, Rihards Bunka, explained at the time, such a relatively lenient decision could have been made due to the fact that the country's prisons did not have enough space to hold criminals serving life sentences - at that time there were fifty-two of them in the country.
ORGANIZED GROUP OF PEDOPHILES
In October 2009, the Riga police received a tip about possible cases of pedophilia in one of the capital's children's homes. The police detained 55-year-old Oskars Shtamers, who had no criminal record and worked as a guard at the entrance to a children's hospital. Under pressure from the evidence, he confessed that he had been molesting boys for several years.
Later, Shtamers also “split” about the “comrades” with whom he shared his “passion.” Following this tip, in April 2010, the police detained 48-year-old priest of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia (ELCL) Agris Pavils Levalds.
The single Levalds had been a priest since 1986. He began his career as a school teacher, then for four years he was the dean of the Catholic Church community in the town of Aizpute near Liepaja. In 2009, Levalds was expelled from the ranks of the Catholics - when rumors began to circulate about his bad habits.
However, he managed to join the ELCL, where he received a position as assistant vicar of the diocese in Daugavpils. The head of the Latvian Catholics, Janis Pujats, himself warned his Lutheran colleagues: "You may have problems with Levalds." Unfortunately, the cardinal did not explain what kind of problems he was talking about...
Soon after Levalds, another "comrade" was caught, a 36-year-old man previously convicted of fraud who had served time. As the investigation found out, all three had been maintaining their "interest group" for five years.
They looked for victims in orphanages, hospitals or simply on the street among underage boys, including children with mental development problems. They were first pumped full of alcohol or forced to engage in depraved acts under threat of beatings. As a "reward" they offered sweets, clothes, mobile phones and topping up the phone balance.
The trio of pedophiles acted together - if one of them corrupted a child, he immediately reported it to his accomplices. The geography of residence of the victims of debauchery turned out to be wide - in fact, all of Latvia.
The leadership of the Latvian Lutherans, trying to hush up the scandal at least a little, stated: "Levalds was only an auxiliary priest without a permanent parish. There are other clergy working in the diocese."
The court handed down guilty verdicts to the group of pedophiles, although not very harsh ones: in particular, Shtamers received four and a half years, and Levalds received three years and eight months in prison.
CAPTAIN SHARK'S DEFEAT
Even earlier, in September 1999, the Latvian television channel LNT showed a story about a pedophile network operating in the country. Among its members were named the director of the agency Misis Latvija, Ainars Eisaks, and an employee of the company Izimeks, Ingus Tuns.
The same TV report mentioned that some members of the government, whose names were not given, may have also used the services of the perverts. The program showed boys with specially blurred faces and altered voices who told about sexual relations with high-ranking officials.
Eisaks demanded that a criminal case be opened against LNT journalist Vairis Stašāns – and his claim was moved forward. However, the information voiced attracted the attention of the Saeima. A special commission was created there, headed by former Minister of the Interior Jānis Adamsons.
In his youth, Adamsons, a colorful personality, served in the border service of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, where he earned the nickname "Captain Shark," which stuck with him for the rest of his life.
In the mid-90s, the Interior Ministry structures under his command destroyed several large gangster groups, meaning that Adamsons was quite competent as a specialist. The parliamentary commission he headed quickly came to the conclusion that the LNT journalists were not lying.
The investigators focused on the Riga modeling agency Logos centrs, under whose guise the criminal activity was carried out. As a result, according to Adamsons, the investigative commission came across “a large international network, firms that specialize in using minors in the pornography business”
Adamsons claimed that the center of this network was in Bratislava, and branches were in all post-socialist states, including Russia. "The threads of pedophilia and the supply of human goods stretch to Finland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Slovakia, Germany, Denmark, Great Britain, and the USA," the politician claimed.
The commission he headed also established that Eisaks, Tuns and their accomplice Yuri Yuryev secretly worked for the KGB during Soviet times.
On February 17, 2000, Captain Akula announced from the Saeima rostrum that Prime Minister Andris Šķēle, Minister of Justice Valdis Birkavs, Director General of the State Revenue Service Andrejs Sončiks, and Principal of the Riga Classical Gymnasium Romans Aliev were involved in the pedophilia case. According to Adamsons, he had collected witness testimony that allowed him to make such an accusation.
The news made the front pages of the world press. Justice Minister Birkavs declared a hunger strike and immediately submitted a statement to the prosecutor's office to protect his honor and dignity. President Vaira Vike-Freiberga called February 17 a "black day" for Latvia and its international image.
On the same day, Vike-Freiberga met with Adamsons and asked him to present all the evidence he had to the responsible authorities as soon as possible. But the former minister declared his lack of confidence in the Latvian prosecutor's office.
The mistrust turned out to be justified: all the officials named got off with a fright, and no criminal cases were brought against them. True, their political careers were destroyed: soon the Shkele government was forced to resign.
Eisachs and his accomplices received relatively short prison terms - from two and a half to five years. But Captain Shark was subjected to long and sophisticated revenge.
For many years, he was subjected to ever new “dirty tricks” - either being recognized as a former KGB agent, or accused of “spreading knowingly false information”, until in 2021 they hung “espionage for Russia” on him and sent the cancer-stricken politician to prison for eight and a half years.