An American man who allegedly sexually exploited girls in Cebu City was deported from the Philippines on Thursday last week, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) announced today.
Craig Alex Levin, 64, flew out of the country from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport via a chartered flight booked by the United States Embassy, BI Commissioner Jaime Morente said in a statement. Prior to his deportation, Levin was detained at the Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City.
Morente said that Levin was declared an “undocumented and undesirable alien” by the bureau because he was a fugitive in the U.S.
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“He has been placed in our immigration blacklist, thus he is now perpetually banned from re-entering the Philippines. Henceforth, he would no longer pose a threat to our Filipino children,” Morente said.
A native of Pennsylvania, Levin was indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in February for allegedly using “the internet to persuade, induce, entice and coerce a child into sex trafficking” and that he had sex with these minors during his multiple visits to the Philippines.
“Craig Levin felt safe in the Philippines. He traveled there repeatedly, stayed for months at a time, and sexually exploited numerous underage girls, as alleged,” Tara McMahon, a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in a statement.
“If Mr. Levin thought no one in the U.S. would know or care about the abuse because it took place on the other side of the world, he was badly mistaken,” she added.
Levin was arrested in May 2019 in the village of Cogon Ramos in Cebu City, where he was found in a condominium accompanied by a child. According to Cebu City police, they were informed by the FBI that he would always be accompanied by girls whenever he visited the area. The authorities said they were able to speak to some of Levin’s victims who alleged that he would have sex with them and that he would even document the acts on video.
Seized from Levin during his arrest were credit cards, condoms, a pair of handcuffs which he allegedly used during sex, children’s underwear, a laptop, a smartphone, and a notebook that contained the names of girls and their corresponding ages. Levin had denied that he did something illegal during his visits in Cebu City.
In 2016, UNICEF declared the Philippines as the epicenter of the global sex abuse trade, where most victims are children. It estimates that each year, at least 100,000 Filipino children, most of whom are girls, are victimized.
