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A world deep underground
Omagiu Magazine Spring 08
 

 
 
Investigative journalist Will Mottson looks into a shadowy world of British paedophiles who’ve adapted to life in Romania in a particularly shocking - and novel - manner.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Bucharest is riddled with underground passages. Some of them were built out of the madcap dictator Ceausescu’s obsession with moving silently between his state institutions; others predate communism. The Palace of the People itself, the second largest building in the world, is said to be connected to every other state building by an elaborate tunnel system, and, according to some, boasts a private metro line for use in emergencies. However, these tales of underground passages took on a whole new significance when, some months back, I heard a rumour; a shocking rumour of how these tunnels had been put to a darker purpose; a paedo-purpose that it would turn the stomach of any right-thinking citizen.
 
The net was buzzing with chatter that the tunnels below Bucharest had developed into a thriving community of British paedophiles; a flourishing kiddie-fiddling fiefdom; a subterranean Metropolis of Nonce. Countless paedophiles were preying on the helpless street children with whom they shared the tunnel systems, living in a paedo-capital with its own economy and legal system, serviced by improvised chariots driven by packs of howling street dogs forced into their filthy paedo-service.
 
It’s partly a consequence of increased vigilance at home. Gone are the days when a retired primary school teacher, or former-scout master, or basically anyone with a bit of a funny walk, could leave their house without being taunted with cries of ‘kiddie fiddler’ – and a good thing too. However, in this era of global economics, the problem has simply moved to where there’s surplus supply: Romania.
 
And so, one bright morning, I found myself in a black cab, speeding through London from my recently renovated three bedroom semi (with loft-conversion), to catch a flight to Bucharest. I wasn’t leaving unprepared: over the past few weeks, I’d been integrating myself into a suspicious web-community of Bucharest-based ex-pats, led by a man known as ‘B_den_Powell’, who I met on an internet chat-room. My suspicions were quickly confirmed, and I managed to win their trust by sending improvised pieces of child pornography – photographs of me and my brother in the bath, aged three and a half. These were rather cruelly dismissed by B_den as being of minimal erotic value. However, we eventually arranged to meet up in Bucharest, so that I could be introduced to their underground community: underground in the literal sense. As in, living under the physical ground.
 
B_den, or Martin, as his real name turned out to be, was there to meet me off the plane. He met me with a sickeningly friendly smile and a firm handshake that almost led me to blow my cover: I was so repulsed by his paedo-touch that I found myself stifling the urge to retch all over his shoes. However, I kept my cool, forced a friendly smile, and found myself in another taxi speeding towards the Romanian capital.           
 
The taxi pulled up at a patch of wasteland, where I was greeted by a second ex-pat, named Brian. Brian had a bag of Werther’s Originals in one hand, and was carefully laying a trail of sweets towards a tunnel opening – one of the tunnel’s I’d come here to explore; a tunnel that led down into the very bowels of the earth – perhaps plumbing the very depths of humanity itself. This sweet-laying process, Martin told me with a wicked smile, is common practice among their kind. They refer to it as ‘Greteling’.       
          
 
Inside the tunnel system I witnessed sights so horrifying that I feel obliged to repeat them in a fair amount of detail. The community of paedophiles I was introduced to, a group of around twenty males, is just a small part of the thriving sex-offender community. They may number thousands, maybe tens of thousands. But probably not millions. Trade is carried out with other paedo-communities by the two accepted currencies - street children and cigarettes. Each community has its own zone of control, and there are frequent raids into enemy territory when they run out of children. Or cigarettes. I eagerly asked Martin about the packs of stray dogs forced to drive underground paedo-chariots, but he looked blankly at me and said he’d never heard anything so silly. The dog story sadly seemed to be a bit of an exaggeration.           
 
On the flight back to London, returning to my recently renovated three bedroom semi (with loft conversion), I realised that I was one of the few outsiders ever to see this seedy underground world. It’s a phenomenon that must be brought to light – and when I say brought to light, I’m not making use of a metaphor. I mean it in the literal sense, as in brought out, kicking and screaming, into the light of the god-damn open.