The tasks that the young girls have to complete in the ‘high score game’ “start innocently”, writes the Public Prosecution Service. “But the further they get into the game, the further the assignments go.” A 40-year-old man from Limburg has captured dozens of girls between the ages of 9 and 17 who “perform increasingly radical sexual acts” with this game, partly developed by him.
On Tuesday, the man, Bas P. from Herten, was tried for the first time at a public hearing in the Rotterdam court. He is suspected of abusing 150 underage girls online – 40 of whom are from the Netherlands. The Public Prosecution Service’s investigation shows that he was involved in this “for years, from 2017 until his arrest.” “His computer contained thousands of child pornographic images,” including 300 videos.
The man came to the attention of the police in July 2024 due to a tip from the United States. He exchanged images of child sexual abuse on a forum on the dark web with other men with a sexual preference for underage girls. More men on that forum use these types of online games to obtain images. The police and the Public Prosecution Service call it a “worrying development that men with a sexual preference for minors are increasingly approaching their victims through online games.”
The girls ‘sometimes visibly cried’
The girls were not aware that anyone was watching, let alone that they were being recorded. “What starts with waving,” writes the Public Prosecution Service, continues in assignments “where they have to caress their own body and remove items of clothing.” The suspect then used those images to blackmail the girls.
The girls were pressured to perform further sexual acts on themselves. “If they do not do what is asked, the videos are put on the internet or sent to the parents.” In this way they became increasingly entangled in the suspect’s web. The girls “sometimes visibly cried in the photos,” the Public Prosecution Service writes. Not all 150 victims have yet been identified. The police have announced that they will make every effort, together with victim support, to approach “the girls who have been identified and their parents” in the coming period.
The judge ruled that P., who has been in pre-trial detention since his arrest on October 1, 2025, will remain there pending the substantive hearing of his case. The first hearing is scheduled for June 26, 2025.
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