The officer behind the monumental 6,548-year sentence of a calculative yet lonely online paedophile said it was luck and the first time use of an online picture to identify and trace fingerprints.
Mario Guisti, 36, was seated in front of his laptop at his home in Welkom, Free State, when Captain Bez Bezuidenhout and his team of investigators caught him in the act, distributing vast amounts of child pornography content onto the internet.
Guisti was flagged by Interpol as their investigations into child pornography led them to folders shared on the dark web with South African names. This folder with files and documents was passed on to the serial and electronic investigations (SECI) unit in July 2022, where Bezuidenhout took on the case.
The investigation started with trying to identify the boy victims, but there was one picture that stood out. Bezuidenhout said he came across a picture of a male holding the genitals of a small boy. He said he noticed something about the thumb and could tell the hands were not used for intensive manual labour.
“If a person is an office worker, their ridges are unique. If you are doing work like a labourer and using equipment, your ridges are very weak. The ridges on his finger indicated his hands were well taken care of. We could see he had ‘keyboard’ fingers,” Bezuidenhout told TimesLIVE Premium.
How his thumb in a child porn picture led to his arrest
Bezuidenhout decided to trace the thumb with the help of the SAPS criminal record centre where a forensic specialist used magnifying equipment. They managed to identify 10 indicators on the thumb, printed them, uploaded them onto the system and searched for a match.
“I don’t know if this has been done before, but we managed to trace him. He had a passport issue and the passport fingerprint was well documented and we managed to get his name and address.”
However, Guisti had changed address, and searches for his IP address were futile as he used a virtual private network (VPN) to conceal his IP address. Bezuidenhout’s investigation revealed that Guisti was a computer programmer who ran a business.
He posed as a potential client and requested a quotation for Guisti to develop a website. Guisti caught the bait and replied to the email with his work computer, which revealed his IP address, Bezuidenhout explained. After a month of investigations, Bezuidenhout finally found the online sex predator.
“We then just executed a search warrant and found him sitting in front of his laptop and everything was open and he had no chance to delete anything. What was lovely, which we joke about, was that sometimes in these cases luck plays a big part.
“You can have all the skills, but a bit of luck is necessary and now we found him on a virtual drive. Had he exited the drive, all that he was busy with would have disappeared, but we found him with it on. We were then able to isolate the drive,” he said.
This was an 8GB drive, but there was a camera that was used to create videos of the boys he managed to lure online. Bezuidenhout said the camera had images of child pornography and more than 400 videos created by Guisti and uploaded to about 4,000 active clients who are registered on the website he was visiting.
You can have all the skills but a bit of luck is necessary and now we found him on a virtual drive. Had he exited the drive, all that he was busy with would have disappeared but we found him with it on. We were then able to isolate the drive.
— Captain Bez Bezuidenhout
Guisti — the loner who lured boys and fell in love with a victim
As a computer programmer, Guisti used his ability to develop online games to lure boys to his house. He would reach out to young boys online aged between eight and 10 and living in his area.
He would then propose they come to his house to test the games to earn pocket money, Bezuidenhout said.
Eventually, a friendship would form and the boys would end up sleeping over and be groomed. Guisti even believed he was in an intimate relationship with one of his eight-year-old victims.
“It’s important to remember that a full paedophile believes that his victims and himself have a love connection, like a married couple with sexual duties. He believed that he was in a relationship with his victim and also said he shouldn’t testify as it would put a strain on him, and he is his life partner. To sit down with such a person during an interview, you cannot judge. You must act as if you believe what is in their mind.”
Bezuidenhout used the same method to crack another online child pornography case in Springs two weeks ago where three child sexual predators were arrested.
He said these were “big guys” in such crimes, and the alleged suspects are two South Africans and a British man.
But Bezuidenhout has always had a passion for protecting children, requesting to join the child protection unit 30 years ago and will retire in four years’ time.
Asked how he copes with dealing with such cases, he said his family, children and grandchildren are his emotional support and keep him grounded. He also receives emotional support from his superiors.
Bezuidenhout applauded the government for introducing the Cybercrimes Act in 2020, as it has helped his unit dismantle child pornography cases.
“I love the law and the application of the law. This act will make you fall in love with your work all over again because this law is exactly what we needed for our unit, and it is causing a stir on these sexual predators,” he said.
As for Guisti’s victims, he said the children have either moved away or received help. This includes Guisti’s eight-year-old “lover”.
“The eyes speak and he was emotionless and just talking. There was no joy left in his eyes and it made a big impact on me. He was just answering questions like what happened is a normal thing. The details of what happened to him were narrated like he was a machine. This is part of the grooming process,” he said.
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