A Dutch backpacker has made a horror discovery after seeing a series of USB cables around his Sunshine Coast accommodation. Photo / Facebook
A Dutch backpacker has made a horror discovery after seeing a series of USB cables around his Sunshine Coast accommodation. Photo / Facebook
A Dutch backpacker has made a horror discovery after seeing a series of USB cables around his Sunshine Coast accommodation.
The backpacker, who was staying at the property in the Glasshouse Mountains with four friends, had responded to an ad asking for volunteer backpackers to work for an animal transport business, in return for meals and accommodation.
In a video he posted to Facebook last month, Maron de Rooij, 26, outlined the elaborate network of cameras he discovered throughout the accommodation in the Sunshine Coast property.
The backpacker said his room was riddled with cameras. Photo / Facebook
These included infrared sensors, and cameras hidden beneath small drilled holes in the shelving and other furniture.
Trinkets like kookaburras and chickens were glued in place to stop tenants removing wires or putting towels over the camera lenses, according to de Rooij, who posted the video to Facebook in June, saying, "Cops are here, I called them".
He told Nine he still had to stay the night, with nowhere else to go as he waited for police to arrive the next morning.
"The only thing I could do was stick in there and wait it out until the cops came," he said.
"I just hid under my blanket and started texting my Dutch cousin who is living here as well, and she called the cops for me."
De Rooij said he became particularly suspicious of the homeowner, Conrad-River Owen Cosgrove, who instructed them to "shower every day," telling them it was a rule of the house, according to The Sunshine Coast Daily.
A Dutch backpacker has made a horror discovery after seeing a series of USB cables around his Sunshine Coast accommodation.
The backpacker said his room was riddled with cameras. Photo / Facebook
Maroochydore Magistrates Court heard yesterday that an audio wire extended from the backpacker accommodation to Cosgrove's house.
Seven more cameras were found in a container, and a series of cameras were found that faced the shower.
"I did not realise I was breaking the law, that's only an explanation, it's not an excuse,"
Police came the next morning and checked the room. Mr de Rooij still had to stay the night. Photo / Facebook
Cosgrove told the court, saying he kept the footage for "personal gratification".
Yesterday Cosgrove pleaded guilty to two charges of observations or recordings in breach of privacy, and to possessing tainted property.
He was sentenced to two concurrent six-month jail terms for both offences, suspended for 18 months.
