PHILIPPINE police have arrested a 61-year-old Australian over allegations he sexually molested 14 Filipino children.
Michael Refalo was arrested while at an internet cafe on Camotes island, east of the island of Cebu on Wednesday, police said.
The arrest - on charges of human trafficking - comes four weeks after former Melbourne private school teacher Hilton Reece Munro, 46, hanged himself in a Cebu jail while awaiting trial over the alleged sex abuse of four Filipino boys as young as nine.
Philippine investigators have identified Cebu as the key hub of a billion-dollar cybersex industry where children, including toddlers, are forced to perform sex acts that are streamed online to paedophiles around the world.
In March, allegations against Melbourne man Peter Gerard Scully, 52, prompted calls for the Philippines to reintroduce the death penalty.
Scully is in a Philippines jail facing life imprisonment on charges of sexually abusing 11 children aged between 18 months and 13 years and the murder of one of his alleged victims, a 13 year-old girl he allegedly strangled.
Police described Scully's alleged crimes as the worst they had seen in the Philippines in decades.
Last year Victorian man Patrick Ronald Goggins, a 68-year-old Vietnam war veteran, was jailed for more than 11 years by a Melbourne court for paying four sisters aged between five and 15 years from Cebu to perform a range of sickening sex acts in front of a webcam.
When questioned by police, Goggins said his victims would be ''out on the scrapheap, living on rubbish'' if he did not pay them to perform.
Police said they intended to present Refalo at a press conference in Cebu where the allegations that he molested 14 girls would be detailed.
Human trafficking in the Philippines is a non-bailable offence.
Michael Refalo was arrested while at an internet cafe on Camotes island, east of the island of Cebu on Wednesday, police said.
The arrest - on charges of human trafficking - comes four weeks after former Melbourne private school teacher Hilton Reece Munro, 46, hanged himself in a Cebu jail while awaiting trial over the alleged sex abuse of four Filipino boys as young as nine.
Philippine investigators have identified Cebu as the key hub of a billion-dollar cybersex industry where children, including toddlers, are forced to perform sex acts that are streamed online to paedophiles around the world.
In March, allegations against Melbourne man Peter Gerard Scully, 52, prompted calls for the Philippines to reintroduce the death penalty.
Scully is in a Philippines jail facing life imprisonment on charges of sexually abusing 11 children aged between 18 months and 13 years and the murder of one of his alleged victims, a 13 year-old girl he allegedly strangled.
Police described Scully's alleged crimes as the worst they had seen in the Philippines in decades.
Last year Victorian man Patrick Ronald Goggins, a 68-year-old Vietnam war veteran, was jailed for more than 11 years by a Melbourne court for paying four sisters aged between five and 15 years from Cebu to perform a range of sickening sex acts in front of a webcam.
When questioned by police, Goggins said his victims would be ''out on the scrapheap, living on rubbish'' if he did not pay them to perform.
Police said they intended to present Refalo at a press conference in Cebu where the allegations that he molested 14 girls would be detailed.
Human trafficking in the Philippines is a non-bailable offence.
