Christopher Paul Neil
 | This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses, and initial news reports may be unreliable. The latest updates to this article may not reflect the most current information. (October 2007) |
Christopher Paul Neil (born 1975 in Canada) is a suspect in an Interpol investigation of the sexual abuse of at least 12 young boys in Vietnam and Cambodia. Neil, a Canadian national, allegedly appeared in over 200 photographs depicting the abuse, which surfaced on the internet and led to a worldwide manhunt known as Operation Vico. The face of the abuser was obscured by a digital swirl in the photographs, but German computer experts at the Federal Criminal Police Office were able to reconstruct the original picture, using techniques which they have not revealed but are believed to have been as simple as running the transformation in reverse.[1]
Several of these reconstructed pictures were posted on Interpol's website and led to over 350 people contacting the organization, five of whom identified the man as Neil. Neil was working as an English teacher in South Korea, but had traveled to Thailand at the time of his identification. As of October 16th, 2007, Neil remains at large; according to Thai police he is assumed to still be in Thailand[2][3][4][5]