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A 22-year-old Melbourne man who was a babysitter for young neighbourhood children has been revealed as a notorious online paedophile who used the sinister pseudonym Lux.
Matthew David Graham, a university nanotechnology student of South Morang, admitted to 13 child pornography charges in court on Wednesday as the head of an online paedophile ring on secret "dark web" sites specialising in "hurtcore" – torture and grotesque sexual acts with children, toddlers and babies.
"This material was the worst of the worst in the world," a Victoria police investigator said.
Lawyers for Graham told the Melbourne Magistrates' Court that he feared for his safety in the Metropolitan Remand Centre, where he is being housed.
Police described Graham as a "non-contact" offender. The charges relate to administering hidden websites rather than physically abusing children. But among the charges he faces is one of "encouraging" and advising on the abduction, rape and killing of a five-year-old girl in Russia.
He was arrested after a two-year probe by the FBI, Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police's Taskforce Astraea, Canadian police and Europol. He is closely linked to fellow Melbourne man Peter Gerard Scully who faces charges of murder, rape and human trafficking in the Philippines.
Australian investigators allege Graham shared material with Scully including a series of videos called Daisy's Destruction in which an Asian child is tortured and abused by two adults.
Graham is also linked to Adelaide paedophile Shannon Grant McCoole, 33, known on the dark web as Skee, a former childcare worker for Families Australia. He sexually abused seven children in his care and ran a dark web child pornography site which Graham is charged with supplying videos to.
McCoole was jailed this month for 35 years but is appealing his sentence.
In a further disturbing link, Graham allegedly helped a 27-year-old Cranbourne man – now jailed, with his name suppressed – to evade detection after the man made child pornography with a female relative who was aged between six and nine years old and in his care, between 2010 and 2014.
One of the 2014 images shows the girl holding a sign addressing "Lux."
While living at home with his parents and sister and attending Epping Secondary College, Graham adopted the nickname and became one of the FBI's most wanted child sex offenders. He was described by the school as a "good student." He has been estranged from his family since being originally charged with 88 offences last year.
South Morang residents near where he lived said he was babysitter for six local children, three boys and three girls, all aged under 10.
Graham's network of eight websites included text-only chat forums for paedophiles. He made no money from any sites and told an American journalist in encrypted emails last year: "People who have an interest in such things should have a place where they're able to voice their opinions and desires".
As Lux, he announced online he had stopped hosting child pornography and "hurtcore" in June last year, writing: "As always, all Empires eventually fall…..after years of running CP (child pornography) hidden services, today is the day I walk away. There are personal issues which my closer friends have been made aware of that have forced me to make this decision".
His case comes to the County Court for sentencing on February 3.
