Nearly 1,700 Suspected Child Sex Predators Arrested

Nearly 1,700 Suspected Child Sex Predators Arrested During Operation “Broken Heart”

By StevieRay Hansen | June 11, 2019 | 
Sexual abuses of all types, including sexual assaults, have been a part of human history since before Old Testament times. Legal definitions of sexual assault identify it as any type of unwanted sexual contact or any crime in which the offender subjects the victim to unwanted and offensive sexual touching.

...A law enforcement review of nine Tor sites hosting child sex abuse discussions, videos, and images tracked 1.9 million members last fall. Some sites were adding thousands of new users every day. One child sex abuse site has 432,235 registered members, according to WePROTECT Global Alliance.

Online child sex abuse and the production of child pornography are skyrocketing. Reports of online child sexual abuse and exploitation tracked by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children grew tenfold from 2013 to 2017. The number of identified child victims grew fivefold between 2010 and 2017, to 15,000 from roughly 3,000 sexually abused children.

As the epidemic booms, law enforcement authorities are struggling to keep up. The number of child exploitation cases went up by 160 percent between 2008 and 2018, according to Callaghan. Federal prosecutors filed more than 2,500 child exploitation cases in the fiscal year 2018, capturing just a fraction of the predators.

The Department of Justice today announced the arrest of almost 1,700 suspected online child sex offenders during a two-month, nationwide operation conducted by Internet Crimes Against Children task forces. The task forces identified 308 offenders who either produced child pornography or committed child sexual abuse, and 357 children who suffered recent, ongoing or historical sexual abuse or were exploited in the production of child pornography.