One of the Department of Homeland Security's functions is to investigate online crimes against children, including here in Virginia. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi spoke with the leader of their Cyber Crimes Center and filed this report.
The DHS Cyber Crimes Center, which is housed under the investigative branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, issued a press release last month announcing the one-year anniversary of the Know2Protect campaign. The initiative uses messages on social media and gaming platforms to raise kids' and parents' awareness about the dangers of online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
MIKE PRADO: We understand this threat is pervasive, and it's our goal to really provide the knowledge and the tools and information to children and their parents to hopefully protect their child from being a victim in the first place.
Mike Prado leads the Cyber Crimes Center. He said many of their cases start with a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about child abuse material that's circulating on the internet.
PRADO: The vast, vast majority of our cases involve online child exploitation, meaning a child may never have left his or her home. Now, sadly, we have had instances where there is physical contact with a stranger … but by and large … the abuse is taking place in the home by a known parent or somebody in a position of authority, or it's self-produced imagery shared by the victim with somebody who's enticed them online.
The federal agency often partners with local law enforcement on these investigations, such as one that led to the 2023 conviction of a Harrisonburg realtor on 75 counts of possession and reproduction of child sexual abuse material. Last year, an investigation into the online exploitation of children ended in a guilty plea from a former Coffeewood Correctional Center guard.
I asked Prado if the increase of civil immigration enforcement under the Trump administration has taken any resources away from his department.
PRADO: We're very well-resourced. … We have the ability to work a multitude of mission priorities, and I would say that child exploitation remains a top-tier priority along with civil immigration enforcement as well as our role in combating the opioid epidemic.
