(The Center Square)–An FBI Dallas-led multiagency law enforcement operation spanning multiple counties in north Texas targeting online sexual predators resulted in hundreds being arrested.
The operation was conducted as FBI Director Kash Patel warned last month that federal agents would “hunt down” online child sexual predators.
The priority of the Justice Department and FBI is “our children,” Patel said. “If you harm our children, you will be given no sanctuary. There is no place we will not come to hunt you down. There is no place we will not look for you, and there is no cage we will not put you in should you do harm to our children.”
Following through on that pledge, Patel praised those involved in a major “take down of child abusers in Texas … to protect America’s kids from criminals. We’re taking them off the street and not stopping.”
The North Texas Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and FBI Dallas’s North Texas Child Exploitation Task Force led Operation Soteria Shield, a month-long collaborative enforcement effort to find and rescue children being sexually exploited online.
The operation was run by the FBI Dallas Division, the police departments of Dallas, Plano, Wylie and Garland in conjunction with the National Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
Spanning multiple counties, more than 70 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, federal prosecutors, children’s advocacy centers, and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children were involved. Their efforts led to the rescue of 109 children and arrest of 244 on nearly 400 charges, authorities said.
Highly skilled computer crimes investigators “worked around the clock to identify victims and apprehend offenders engaged in the production, distribution, and possession of child sexual abuse material,” the FBI said.
Investigators also seized “extensive volumes of digital evidence, including terabytes of illicit data stored on electronic devices,” which are undergoing forensic analysis. Once investigators comb through the data, additional victims may be identified and additional arrests may be made, the FBI said.
“We had a common goal, which was to rescue children from abuse and exploitation,” FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge Joseph Rothrock said. “This was not an easy operation, but a necessary one. The FBI and our law enforcement partners will continue to protect the children in our communities, and we will hold child predators accountable for their crimes.”
Plano Police Chief Ed Drain said the operation “brought together an unprecedented level of collaboration and resolve to confront this crisis head-on. Through this operation, we not only rescued children from unimaginable abuse, but we also sent a clear message: those who seek to harm our children online will be found and brought to justice. Our work is far from over, but this effort has made our communities safer and brought hope to those who need it most.”
Wylie Police Chief Anthony Henderson pointed out that the “trauma inflicted by these crimes runs deep, affecting not only the victims, but also their families and entire communities. With every arrest made and every child protected, the operation moves us closer to a safer community.”
In an announcement last month, Attorney General Pam Bondi urged parents to understand that their children have “no right to privacy on the Internet. None. You have to monitor what your kids are doing. Whether they’re playing games on the Internet, on social media, any other websites that children, teenagers frequent, an online predator can find them. I always say it’s from instant message to instant nightmare.”
She also explained the methods online predators use. “They’re talking to your kids like their other children, and they’re not. They’re predators. They pose as children.” Online predators sometimes manipulate children “to post explicit pictures of themselves [online] after they talked to them. In some cases, they even try to blackmail the children. The suicide rate among teens ages 14 to 17 has increased as a result of this as well, because teens are taken advantage of and they’re manipulated online by child predators,” she said.
Bondi also said federal prosecutors would bring the maximum charges against child predators, including life in prison and the death penalty.
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