The arrest yesterday of a Swiss couple in Mumbai involved in tempting street children with gifts, chocolates and clothes to pose in the nude and perform sexual acts points to a wider racket operating in this city.

A network of social activists who have been working against sexual exploitation of children believe they could crack the "distressing and murky trade" now that the first step has been taken to arrest the culprits.

On Saturday evening, senior officers of the Social Service Branch of the Mumbai Police swung into action after being tipped of by activists of the Forum Against Child Sexual Exploitation. When the police broke into the hotel room of the two accused, Wilhelm Marti (59) and his wife Lily Marti (56), at a five-star hotel in Madh Island, Malad, they found them filming two naked girls aged 9 and 11.

A police official said the girls, photographed by the couple, are being medically examined. "If there are signs of rape, the couple will face life imprisonment," he said. One of the activists, present at the time said the couple denied they were involved in the racket until a computer expert broke into the data in their laptop computer and unearthed a series of photographs of street children from Thailand and Sri Lanka.

Wanting to remain unnamed till investigations are through, the activist told Gulf News they later admitted selling the films abroad and supplying material to Internet web sites.

The street children were lured with toys, clothes and food from Colaba in the South Mumbai area and taken to Madh Island, a quiet section of the western suburbs. "Obviously, there were several other children involved as we saw both girls and boys and even adults in the pictures stored in the computer. There was a lot of correspondence which has yet to be investigated," the activist said.

The street children "seem to actually look up to these people, being totally unaware of what was happening to them." The two girls were in a daze when the police raid took place and did not talk.

"Even when I took them later to the garden to gain their confidence, they refused to speak, saying that couple would not approve of it. The children were completely taken in by these foreigners with whom they spent more than five days," the activist said.

"When I entered the hotel room, the Swiss man told me that 'you Indians are all corrupt. I am rich enough to buy any of you'," she said. When the hotel staff was questioned about the children accompanying the couple, they were told the duo was extremely fond of children and wanted to adopt them. Police say, the couple who have visited Mumbai every year for the last eight years has also been regularly visiting Sri Lanka and Thailand with the same motive.

Marti had plans to ensnare at least 12 children by December 29 from Gateway of India, Churchgate station and Colaba. Their usual method was to lure the children with sweets and food and then take them to the western suburbs where they were washed, stripped and instructed to act for the pornographic material.

The parents of the children, pre-occupied with earning their livelihood would not feel their absence. "Most of the parents think that some kind-hearted foreigner has been generous. They can hardly imagine that such a thing would happen to their kids, who themselves don't understand what is happening and therefore don't talk about it."