Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel announced Wednesday that 205 alleged child sex predators who preyed on children online have been arrested in the last five days.
The arrests are part of a new joint operation by the Justice Department and FBI called “Operation Restore Justice” which saw 115 children across the country rescued in the process, Bondi and Patel said.
Bondi called the operation “historic” and “unprecedented” and she warned parents to be vigilant of sex predators posing as children online. The operation spanned 55 field offices.
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“These depraved human beings, if convicted, will face the maximum penalty in prison, some [for] life,” Bondi said at a press briefing. We will find you. We will arrest you, and we will charge you. If you are online targeting a child, you will not escape us. The FBI and the Department of Justice will come after you. And we will prosecute you.”
In Minneapolis, for example, a state trooper and Army Reservist was arrested for allegedly producing child sexual abuse material while wearing his uniforms. In Norfolk, VA, an illegal alien from Mexico is accused of transporting a minor across state lines for sex. In Washington, D.C., a former Metropolitan Police Department police officer was arrested for allegedly trafficking minor victims.
“No more,” 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, the prioritization of this administration.”
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Bondi implored parents monitor what their kids are doing online and said that children have no right to privacy online.
“An online predator can find them, I always say it’s from instant message to instant nightmare parents,” Bondi said. “They’re talking to your kids like they’re other children and they’re not. They’re predators. They pose as children. They get them sometimes to post explicit pictures of themselves after they talk to them and then in some cases, they even try to blackmail the children.”
Bondi said that the suicide rate among teens aged 14 to 17 has increased as a result of these types of sex predators targeting children.
As well, because teens are taken advantage of and are manipulated online by child predators. So all of you being here today and covering this is so important because parents need to know you’ve got to talk to your kids. They think they’re talking to other children, but most of the time they’re not.
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