In Mexico City, a suspected child predator who was on the run from Dutch authorities was apprehended.
Nelson Maatman, 27, was captured without incident by authorities near a train station on Sunday.
According to the Attorney General’s Office in Mexico City, he was in possession of a firearm, cocaine, and electronic devices containing child pornography.
Authorities issued a search warrant at Maatman’s home in the Gustavo A. Madero neighborhood and confiscated child pornography-related smartphones, USB memory sticks, laptops, and hard drives.
Mexico City Attorney General Ernestina Godoy told reporters that Maatman had been identified as the leader of an international pedophile and child pornography network.
He founded the Party for Neighborly Love, Freedom and Diversity (PNVD) – a Dutch political party that was not represented in Congress – which sought to promote laws to support adult sex with children, starting at the age of 12.
From April 2014 to March 2021, Maatman allegedly ran a blog which pushed the legalization of sex with minors, arguing that children were capable of deciding on their own if they wanted to partake in sexual acts.
He was arrested in the Netherlands in February 2020 and was busted for possessing more than 10,000 pornographic images of children.
He appeared before a judge in June of that year and was allowed to fight the case without being in police custody as long as he remained in the country.
Maatman was declared a fugitive after he skipped a February 2022 court date, fleeing for Mexico.
The Netherlands-based Free a Girl foundation, which combats the sexual exploitation of children, warned the Mexican government that Maatman was in the country and urged the rejection of his petition seeking political asylum.
He was described as a ‘serious danger’ to minors because he claimed that having sex with children who were over the age of 12 was acceptable under Mexican law.
‘We are impressed with the skill and dedication of the police in Mexico City to protect children from these types of predators,’ Free a Girl spokesperson Evelien Hölsken told De Telegraaf newspaper. ‘We are very relieved that (Maatman) was arrested for posing a serious danger to children in Mexico.’