The Centre for Research and Information on Childhood and Sexuality, known by its acronym CRIES, was a Brussels-based front organization that claimed to help pedophiles deal with their sexuality while operating a VIP child prostitution ring. CRIES was located within a diplomatic neighbourhood of Brussels. The organization was exposed in March 1987 following the arrest of its president, former justice ministry official [[Philippe Carpentier]], along with a close associate who was a translator at the Ministry of Justice's anti-terrorist division named Michel Decre. The Belgian government was highly embarrassed by the revelation that a former justice ministry official was among those arrested, together with a top government official working on highly sensitive anti-terrorist legislation.[^1] Parents were found to be prostituting their children to pedophiles linked to CRIES, who also took children to the [[UNICEF]] building in Brussels to be photographed. A Swiss member of the CRIES network was later arrested in Manchester for attempting to sell pornographic films to wealthy British clients, with the youngest child in the films reported to be an eight-month-old baby and the oldest only twelve. The court would later describe CRIES as "nothing more than an instrument of child prostitution." Carpentier received a nine-year sentence, while Michel Decre received seven years.[^1] ### Connections to Broader Networks CRIES was connected to the [[Spartacus Network]] through multiple pathways. The Belgian pastor [[Joseph Douce]], who was in contact with CRIES founder Carpentier, was connected to [[Edward Brongersma]] and [[Francis Shelden]] contributor Fritz Bernard, linking CRIES to Shelden's PAN publication under the Spartacus umbrella. [[Jean-Paul Dumont]], a powerful Brussels attorney, served as lawyer for individuals implicated in the CRIES case, including the brother of a former executive of [[Bank Brussels Lambert]] named [[Forges de Clabecq]]. An anonymous witness in the [[X-Dossier]] identified Dessy as "a member of the homosexual network SPARTACUS" who "pays a lot of money for pedophile cassettes (tortures) and/or children."[^1] The arrest of [[Beat Meier]], a Spartacus and PAN associate, in late January 1987 for smuggling a kidnapped three-year-old boy from Belgium into the UK with [[Francis Shelden]] associate Roger Lawrence, appears to have triggered the arrests of CRIES members in March, and then those at UNICEF in July. In October 2001, Michel Decre was arrested again in relation to the seizure of fifteen cubic meters of CD-ROMs, photographs, and video cassettes from the home of a former gravedigger named Jacques Delbouille, who had also been arrested during the CRIES investigation but released without charge.[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.