It’s time for parents to have hard conversations with their kids about their internet behavior. That was the message from the Pittsburgh FBI Field Office Wednesday morning, when officials announced the results of a July initiative called Operation Independence Day. The nationwide operation netted 67 suspected child traffickers.
“It’s important that parents have open and constructive dialogues with their children about what they’re doing with their phones,” said supervisory special agent Tim Wolford, “and the dangers that are out there.”
During the operation, the FBI identified or recovered 103 juveniles in collaboration with 400 law enforcement agencies around the country. Wolford said undercover officers posed as potential clients for minors who had advertised sex online, then met with juveniles and built rapport. From there, the agents began to establish cases against “perpetrators who prey on children.”
#FBI Pittsburgh spoke with local media about Operation Independence Day. The FBI-led operation resulted in the identification and recovery of more than 100 juveniles. https://t.co/d3Gt8meJee pic.twitter.com/PR3IN83KK1
— FBI Pittsburgh (@FBIPittsburgh) August 7, 2019
“These are some of the toughest cases that we work. And these agents working these cases see the darkest side of humanity,” Wolford said. “But they do it to give these kids a brighter future and the opportunity to grow up to be healthy adults.”
Hear from FBI agent Tim Wolford on 90.5 WESA's The Confluence.
In many cases, perpetrators create fake social media profiles and try to get kids to meet them in person, or to send explicit photographs the perpetrators can later use for blackmail.
“[The minors are] told that if they don’t send more pictures or more egregious pictures that they’ll expose them to their parents or their friends, which kind of traps them in this relationship with these people,” Wolford said.
Two arrests were made in western Pennsylvania, including one in Pittsburgh. So far this year, seven people have been charged with traveling to Pittsburgh to have sex with a minor.
Woford warned that child sexual exploitation can happen anywhere.
“Even if you don’t think these kind of crimes are happening in your neighborhood, I’m here to tell you that they are.”
UPDATED: 1:14 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 8, 2019, to correct the number of people charged and reflect that the woman arrested locally was in Pittsburgh, not Monroeville.
