The number of child sex exploitation cases is rapidly rising in the Washington, D.C., region, and so, too, is pressure to find new tools for law enforcement to catch the predators.
U.S. Justice Department records obtained by the News4 I-Team in a public records request show more than 300 federal prosecutions for child sex crimes in D.C., Maryland and Virginia since 2016, including cases in which devices capable of holding tens of thousands of child sex images were seized.
“It happens everywhere, in the smallest towns and the biggest cities,” said Steve Grocki, chief of the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.
“(Predators) can very easily be communicating with people in Russia, China and anywhere in the world,” Grocki said. “It’s so easy online now, and language is not a barrier.”
The increase in prosecutions comes amid fast-evolving technology to record and share exploitative images, according to federal officials.
“Every person walks around 24 hours a day with a high definition photography device,” Grocki said.