A graphic artist for some of Disney and Pixar’s most memorable animated films has been incarcerated for ordering the rape and sexual assault of young Filipina girls on camera.
From 2012 to 2021, Bouhalem Bouchiba hired women in the Philippines to rape and sexually abuse five to 10-year-old girls on livestreams he would watch and instruct the women through, a Paris court found.
Bouchiba, 59, confessed to watching webcam sex shows featuring Filipina women and browsing child porn sites. He said he had gotten in touch with these women through legal, adult-exclusive sex sites, transferred conversations onto secure messaging platforms, and proceeded to solicit live videos showing sexually abusive acts involving children.
He revealed he had made such arrangements with 24 women. He would spend around €50 to €100 per show, equivalent to over ₱3,000 to ₱6,000, ultimately remitting a total of more than €50,000 or ₱3 million.
“I am aware of everything I did. I ask the victims’ forgiveness,” Bouchiba said in court. In his testimony, he acknowledged the abuse was much like “torture.”
Police were alerted to Bouchiba’s activities by the European Union’s law enforcement agency Europol, which detected dodgy money transfers to the Philippines during a larger investigation into livestreamed child sexual exploitation paid for by Westerners.
Bouchiba, who had been residing in the United States, was apprehended at the San Francisco airport and extradited to France.
“On the one hand you have a graphic artist who delighted children,” state prosecutor Philippe Courroye said. “On the other, Bouhalem Bouchiba was a pedophile filmmaker who staged his own horror movies.”
Bouchiba has worked on blockbuster movies such as “The Incredibles,” “Up,” and “Ratatouille,” to name a few.
In 2009, Bouchiba was also convicted for the sexual abuse of his stepdaughter.
