The Department of Justice announced Tuesday, June 12, the success of a three-month nationwide operation, which targeted online child sex offenders with the arrest of more than 2,300 suspects.
The Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force named this comprehensive investigation Operation Broken Heart. The 61 ICAC which was made up of over 4,500 federal state, local, and tribal law enforcement agents and was conducted in all 50 states during a three month period of March, April, and May of 2018.
This sweeping coordinated effort “identified 195 offenders, who had either produced child pornography or committed child sexual abuse, and 383 children who suffered recent, ongoing or historical sexual abuse or production of child pornography,” according the Office of Public Affairs from the Department of Justice.
The LEOs participating in Operation Broken Heart investigated more than 25,200 complaints of technology-facilitated crimes against children and delivered more than 3,700 presentations on Internet safety to over 390,000 youth and adults.
Broken Heart had an intense focus on four main areas.
- Targeting suspects who produce, distribute, receive, and possess child pornography.
- Target suspects who engage in online enticement of children for sexual purposes.
- Target suspects who engage in sex trafficking of children.
- Target suspects who travel across state lines or to foreign countries and sexually abuse children.
According to the Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), which funds the ICAC, since the programs started in 1998 they have reviewed more than 775,000 complaints of child exploitation, which resulted in the arrest of more than 83,000 individuals. More than 629,400 law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and professionals have been trained on techniques to investigate and prosecute ICAC related cases.
President Trump recently shared that human trafficking is at all time high in all of human history due to the Internet.
“No child should have to endure sexual abuse,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. “And yet, in recent years, certain forms of modern technology have facilitated the spread of child pornography and created greater incentives for its production. We at the Department of Justice are determined to strike back against these repugnant crimes. It is shocking and very sad that in this one operation, we have arrested more than 2,300 alleged child predators and investigated some 25,200 sexual abuse complaints. Any would-be criminal should be warned: this Department will remain relentless in hunting down those who victimize our children.”
This massive announcement of such an astonishing number of arrest of child sex predators comes only a few months after another huge take down by law enforcement agencies as part of an enforcement action by the FBI.
In April of 2018, Backpage.com, a massive ad marketplace that is primarily used to sell sex, was seized along with affiliated websites. Backpage and affiliates was a global operation that brought in revenue of $135 million, as reported by the New York Times in 2014. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has told Congress that nearly three quarters of cases submitted to the center relate to ads posted to Backpage.
President Trump signed into law in April 2018, FOSTA, Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act. This allows states and victims to fight online sex trafficking and provides the tools needed to fight the scourge of predators.
Sex trafficking is a global form of modern day slavery. According to the White House, “Over 99 percent of trafficked individuals trapped in forced sexual exploitation are women. Over 21 percent of those trafficked for sex are children.” Also comes the startling statistics that “a 2014 Urban Institute study estimated the combined worth of the underground sex economy in Atlanta, Dallas, Kansas City, Miami, Seattle, San Diego, and Washington DC, to be between $39.9 and $290 million.”
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to all of the men and women in law enforcement who are fighting this battle in our nation.
Thank you!
– Marjorie Greene