Girls and boys as young as 12-years-old were the target of a Wodonga man who used a Filipino dating site to look for "hot photos" and engage in child pornography in exchange for money.
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The Australian Federal Police case against Thomas Kinchela differed to other cases because most of his offending was made up of what was described as "pornographic comments" and "explicit text messages".
The 55-year-old appeared in Wodonga County Court this week to plead guilty to seven charges including transmitting and soliciting child pornography, engaging a child under 16 for a sexual act, transmitting incident communication to a child under 16, possessing child abuse material and failing to report Skype user names as someone already on the sex offender register.
Crown prosecutor Shivani Pillai told the court of 12 occasions that Kinchela talked to people in the Philippines over Skype, after first getting in contact via the dating site.
The conversations were in text, rather than video.
If they were adults, he would ask if they had a younger friend or cousin who could join them.
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Kinchela offered to send money or buy mobile phones if they could prove they were "his".
"He told her he wanted someone to be all his in every way," Ms Pillai said.
On at least one occasion he sent money valued at $120 in Australian currency.
He also discussed travelling to the Philippines to meet one of the young girls.
Kinchela also sent sexually explicit photos of himself to some victims and police found 11 child pornography photos on his laptop that had been sent back to him.
Judge Damian Murphy questioned if there were actually children on the end of Kinchela's conversations, but Ms Pillai said he was charged because he believed they were minors.
Kinchela's defence barrister Jonathan Manning argued the degree of harm was lower because the pornography was mostly in text rather than photos.
"That is not to say that the offence is victimless or harmless," he said.
"It doesn't have the flow-on effect as child pornography of another nature does."
The case was adjourned until April.
