Officials recently announced that since 2019, Kentucky State Police have arrested 309 online child predators. They said this reaffirms the administration’s commitment to protecting the Commonwealth’s children from cybercrimes.
Lieutenant Mike Bowling, Commander of the KSP Electronic Crime Branch, said online child endangerment crimes can be easy for children to fall into, and hard for them to get out of on their own.
“You have a perpetrator develop a relationship with a child online on messaging apps and social media. Once that trust is earned, they ask for a photograph, picture, explicit photograph. And once they have that, they will threaten. ‘If you don’t send me more, I’m going to show this to your friends, I’m going to show this to your family, I’m going to show this to your school, your church, etc. Here’s their names, and this is what will happen.’ And there’s never enough photographs sent, never enough money that can be sent for this to stop,” said Bowling.
Officials added that even with current protections in place, online child sex crimes are still prevalent issues. They warn that AI has been used to take pictures of real children to generate fake images of child pornography.
Jill Seyfred, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky, said that while this progress is monumental, it is far from conquering all the child sex crimes in the state.
“The Kentucky State police electronic crime branch receives an average of 1,000 tips every month of every year, and it keeps increasing. Some months that number is in excess of 1,400. So, if you boil that down, that is almost 33 tips or referrals are received every day of the year,” said Seyfred.
To further assist the agency in locating hidden electronic storage devices such as hard drives, USB drives, and cell phones that may contain criminal activity, such as child sexual abuse material, Kentucky State Police introduced the first-ever electronic storage device detection K-9 in Kentucky, one of only 51 of its kind nationwide.
To report a suspected internet crime against a child, contact the KSP Electronic Crime Branch at 502-782-9769.