Toddlers were gang-raped in Texas mall bathroom because their moms couldn’t afford childcare and entrusted them to ‘pedophile co-worker Arthur Hector Fernandez’ who they ‘were able to identify in abuse videos by his bracelets and shoes’

Two toddlers were gang-raped in a shopping center bathroom while their mothers believed their alleged pedophile colleague was caring for them.

Arthur Hector Fernandez, 29, a store clerk at the Galleria mall in Houston, is accused of being the ringleader of at least seven men who abused the children.

He then allegedly posted four videos he had filmed of the horrific abuse of the two-year-old boys in the evil corners of the dark web for fellow pedophiles.

That was his alleged downfall, as the videos were spotted by the Australian Center to Counter Child Exploitation and the children’s mothers identified him.

Fernandez allegedly had access to the children because he worked with one of their mothers and next to the other.

The women were sometimes called to work on their day off, or were unable to arrange or pay for childcare, and relied on their friend Fernandez to look after them.

Judge Andrew Edison took one look at the “overwhelming” and “repulsive” evidence and threw Fernandez in jail until his trial.

“I cannot allow (the) defendant to abuse other minors, and there are no conditions or combination of conditions (of release) that would mitigate a danger to the community.” This is not a close call,” he wrote in his order.

The evidence shows in gruesome detail how four men repeatedly abused the boys, including one who was raped on a changing table.

One of the men even told the victim to “shut up” as he struggled, and in another video an abuser called the boy “you f**king s**t” and told him to “cry like a man’. little b***h’.

Fernandez is the only suspect charged in the case so far and it is unclear whether the other men in the video have been identified by police.

After the FBI was tipped off last month, agents had the grim task of painstakingly analyzing the footage for clues, and noticed one of the men’s signature bracelets.

They tracked down one of the mothers after running the child’s face through an open source image search and showed her a “cleaned up” image of the jewelry.

She said she recognized the two silver bracelets — one a chain with a dolphin charm and the other a chunky bead style — that Fernandez regularly wore.

Investigators searched Fernandez’s Instagram page and found a photo of him allegedly wearing the same bracelets.

The mother told them that Fernandez often wore white Converse All-Star shoes, just like the pair seen in one of the videos.

The attacks are said to have taken place at the Galleria Mall in Houston, where Fernandez worked at a newsstand

With her help, investigators identified the second child and his mother, to whom they presented the same evidence, and she also identified Fernandez.

Both women said Fernandez sometimes watched their sons when he had to take them to work because they couldn’t find or afford childcare.

The first mother said he pushed her child through the mall last summer when she was called into work at the last minute on her day off.

She sent the FBI a video she found of Fernandez walking out of the Galleria on May 6 last year wearing the same outfit he allegedly wore in one of the videos.

The second woman said Fernandez took her child to the mall around Christmas 2022, and took him trick-or-treating last year.

Police raided Fernandez’s home and seized his computer, tablet, two phones and a camera storage card, along with three pairs of white Converse All-Stars.

He was arrested on December 18 in Kingwood, Texas, and has been behind bars ever since.

FBI agent Torrence White warned parents when announcing the charges against Fernandez that predators were often someone they knew.

“The perpetrators of these crimes are family members, teachers and community members. A lot of times people are looking for the monster in the white van, but a lot of times it’s the person you know,” he said.

Houston’s Galleria is the largest mall in Texas and the seventh largest in the US. It opened in 1969 and has 400 stores.