Fake Victims Lead to Real Arrests in Online Child Sex Stings
By Steven Yoder
Federally funded police task forces carry out thousands of online stings each year, despite little evidence that they prevent abuse.
However, the law enforcement agencies that run these task forces receive funding based in part on how many arrests and convictions they get. This may create an incentive to pursue fictitious-victim sting operations, which are often cheaper and less time-intensive than investigations of crimes with real victims. But experts on child trafficking say it’s unclear how many crimes against children these stings actually prevent, and the federal government hasn’t looked into whether the money spent on these task forces is actually keeping kids from being victimized.
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U.S. law enforcement protocols aren’t secret. So I’m surprised at the amount of disagreement here on what the ICAC protocols actually are and what’s in their training manual.
The ICAC Task Force is a lot of things. They are wasteful and cause harm. But they are not a secret police force.
Jacob,
While it is true ICAC is authorized under federal statute and is “out” (i.e., ‘not secret) they sure do act as secretly as they can. They avoid mentioning their name as often as they can. Under questioning by me, they hestitate to acknowledge their existence as a force, until I told them I knew they existed, and more. They also are rarely ascribed in news stories as “ICAC” when police spokesmen are asked for comment. If ICAC itself wanted its name mentioned, they would surely do so.
Three years ago or so, they did a huge trafficking sting in the Virginia Beach, VA area. But it was led by the US Marshals, not ICAC. Why? ICAC deals only with officers-as-fictitious-kids trolling online, though they love to conflate their zero-real-children-saved stats with the actual horrifying numbers of real children sex-trafficked (an actual problem) as if these two are the same. Conflating numbers is a common tactic among the disingenuous.
In short, cops know how to get the message out if they need to. They happily release glitzy advertisements about the “noble” police officer frequently enough when they are putting a high-gloss on their reputations before the communities they “serve.”
And, after all, why should they? They do not want scrutiny of their actions, which are opaque enough. They are also unusual in that they are a multi-agency, mulit-government-level consortium of law enforcement, which creates confusion on the part of the public.
Jacob
Having worked in law enforcement myself in the past, Not every officer, or Ranking officer follows the book/rules/protocol. Many a time did I experience situations that were so far out of protocol that I thought I was watching a movie in real life. If you have a lead detective on a sting and 4 to 5 other officers, one of them may “Improvise” which basically means entrapment.
My biggest thing is, if you go knowingly to meet an underaged kid, you knew what you were doing. But when on the computer when an agent pretends to be a kid and the adult logs off, doesn’t leave the house and think “Whew, that was a close one” then cops bust through the door and arrest them, do we live in Russia?
One thing I can look back on in my law enforcement career was, there was no internet, well at least not as we know it. I was still using a typewriter to write my reports back then if that tells you anything. The police cars we had then are probably classics by now.
The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Mandated Protocols and Procedures for Proper Rules of Engagement from the United States Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorney General.
This Memorandum of Understanding for Proper Tactics and Rules of Engagement is According to the United States Department of Justice Federal Training Manual for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Undercover Online Chat Training Course and the following Rules are Mandated:
1.) Law Enforcement Officers Shall not use and are Prohibited from using Online Dating Applications and/or Online Dating Websites for Consenting Adults.
2.) Law Enforcement Officers Shall not use and are Prohibited from using Online Instant Messaging Chatrooms for Consenting Adults.
3.) Law Enforcement Officers Shall not use and are Prohibited from using Adult Profiles of the Age of 18 Years Old and Older on Online Social Media/Social Networking Websites.
4.) Law Enforcement Officers are Allowed to use and Shall only use Profiles of the Age of 17 Years Old and Younger on Online Social Media/Social Networking Websites.
5.) Law Enforcement Officers are Prohibited from Committing and Shall Not Commit Egregious-Outrageous Conduct, Entrapment by Cajoling, Compelling, Convincing, Enticing, Inducing, Luring, Persuading, Seducing, Tempting a person who Is Not Pre-Disposed to Commit the Crime Nor Pre-Meditating to Commit the Crime.
6.) Law Enforcement Officers when Setting Up an Online Internet Undercover Sting Operation are Mandated to ask for Permission in Writing via a Cooperative Agreement to said Social Media/Social Networking Website’s Legal Counsel/Legal Team for the Express Purpose of Conducting said Online Internet Undercover Sting Operation and if not done so they would be in Violation of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 United States Code Annotated 1030.
7.) If Law Enforcement Officers Violate and Do not Honor the Liability Clause of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Memorandum of Understanding and Violate and Do not Honor the Oversight Clause of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Operational and Investigative Standards then they would be in Violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 United States Code Annotated 1961-1968.
Source: Office of the Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice.
Can you provide a copy of this? No lawyers or judges believe this to be real or true. We’ve tried to use this and have been told this is not real or true.
I don’t think it is true. A person in Florida tried to use it and the judge threw it out saying it was a fake document.
Debi,
I’m not sure how the judge established that. Based on my recollection through my research on my forthcoming book, it comes from a pre-2017 copy of an ICAC training manual. The language highlighted herein is stripped out of later versions.
There has been considerable discussion as to whether or not it is a fake. When I first encountered it, I contacted the ICAC office in the USDepartment of JUstice, and they were VERY upset that I had access to it, and told me that should not have it. That suggests to me that perhaps it is authentic, but unless we can gain access other corroborating documents that can be autheticated for certain, we will not know.
Bear in mind that unless you were at that trial in Florida, you or I don’t know under what circumstances the document may have been disallowed from evidence. For example, in my trial, the court refused to allow unredacted/untouched texts and chats from me and the undercover cop, even though it was clear that the dates had been stripped out, and disparate conversations were mushed together as if they were the same. Even when I, under oath, explained to the judge that fact, he did not care. Simply ignored me. He had disallowed the chats because there was no Verizon representative to authenticate them!
I have seen two versions of this. One claimed to be from a CIA employee who feared going public, and thus would not give his name. Another was from a supposed retired FBI agent. They were both very close in verbiage – the first claiming to be from an actual ICAC manual.
We did submit that in our case. The Vancouver City prosecutor told the judge that this document was in a draft of the manual but never ‘official’. Was he lying? His lips were moving so probably. But without proof its of no use to anyone. I do believe it’s possible someone with a conscience made these suggestions, or that it was even incorporated at some point. Then ICAC realized how much money they could rake in without the morals clause! If anyone has a way to validate something like this please do reach out ASAP.
My takeaway is that there’s no secret document exposing how ICAC does its job, just waiting to be discovered.
The answers instead are out in the open, and we (and journalists like Steven Yoder, and CAGE) are just trying to get more people to care.
For sure it wasn’t CIA— they have better things to do than domestic sex stings.
How about turning the tables on LE. Hire 16 and 17 year olds to interact with these entrapment sights claiming to be adults and when they start turning the conversation to sex and requesting a meeting place agree , then mention by the way I’m a minor too and by the way the federal underage entrapment kings force(Fuekf) will be contacting you for impersonating a minor and other sex crimes.
So now we’re using FAC’s platform to advocate for deliberately placing minors into sexual conversations with adults.
I realize this post was meant as a joke, it’s just that someone out there reading it might not take it that way.
I didn’t say they would start a sexual conversation but if the LE did they would be liable for doing so the same as someone who engages in a sexual conversation with someone claiming to be an adult then switch’s and all of a sudden becomes a minor.
Lets find more practical solutions.
I suggested the senecio to show how ridiculous what they are doing is.