Australian man known as ‘Wombats’ is arrested for molesting a NEWBORN baby in the US after being on the run for 30 years – as his alleged ‘sick sex spree’ across three continents is finally revealed
- An Australian fugitive has been arrested in the American state of Oklahoma
- Trevor ‘Wombats’ Rombouts is accused of being a prolific child sex offender
- He is accused of assaulting young children across Australia, the US and Europe
- His youngest victim, from Victoria, is thought to have been just two weeks old
Trevor ‘Wombats’ Rombouts (pictured) has been on the run from police in Victoria since the late 1990s and has finally been tracked down in Oklahoma
An accused Australian child predator whose youngest alleged victim was said to be just two weeks old has been arrested in the United States.
Detectives in Oklahama believe Trevor ‘Wombats’ Rombouts would follow the same predatory pattern of moving in with a woman and then assaulting her children.
He is accused of sexually assaulting children in Australia, the US and possibly Europe.
Oklahoma authorities said Trevor Rombouts’ youngest alleged victim was a two-week-old baby in Victoria.
The 52-year-old has been on the run since Victorian police issued warrants for his arrest in the late 1990s.
‘This clearly is a predator,’ Detective Lieutenant Jillian Phippen, of the Tulsa Police Department’s special victims unit in Oklahoma, told AAP on Wednesday.
Tulsa detectives began investigating Rombouts last year when a victim in Oklahoma came forward to say he had assaulted her for several years when she was younger.
Two of Rombouts’ alleged US victims were in Oklahoma and a third was in Texas.
‘Once we started looking at it my detective was like, “There’s going to be more victims just because of his behaviour and how he was treating the victim”,’ Lt Phippen said.
‘Once he started diving into the investigation that’s what happened.
‘We found more victims who were able to come forward and tell their story.
‘We reached out to Australia where he lived and we received information back saying he had been looked at there for child molestation as well.
Detectives in Oklahama believe Trevor ‘Wombats’ Rombouts would follow the same predatory pattern of moving in with a woman and then assaulting her children (stock image)
‘Our red flags went up and we knew this was a predator and he was not going to stop.’
The investigation also found Rombouts had lived in Europe and he might have victims in Belgium, Lt Phippen said.
They tracked Rombouts down in Joplin, Missouri on Monday and took him into custody.
The Australian warrants from the 1990s relate to the alleged abuse of three young children, including a baby who was just two weeks old.
Tulsa prosecutors have charged Rombouts with two counts of child sexual abuse and two counts of lewd molestation.
Police also fear the accused paedophile may have struck in Belgium, as he travelled the world evading Victorian police (stock image)