Among the 79 men arrested was a police officer whose identity was withheld as the internal investigation progresses. [Courtesy of New Jersey Attorney General]
Another huge victory for U.S. authorities was reported. After the Operation Safety Net that took 9 months of investigation, 77 men and two teenagers were arrested for trafficking children and child pornography. The ages of the suspects range from 14 years to 75 years old.
The arrest was announced on Friday and more details started to emerge this week. According to the investigators, the youngest victim of the suspects was 2 years old.
Some men were trying to traffick children for a sex party. One of the defendants bought a 4-year-old and 9-year-old girl and scheduled to pick them up at an airport. However, he was met with investigators of the New Jersey Regional Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The man later identified as 36-year-old George Castillo packed a doll and sex toys for the girls.
Detectives were pretending to be parents willing to sell their children in order to capture these predators who had put on the facade of nice citizens. Among the people arrested are a police officer whose identity was withheld, a 37-year-old piano teacher Bryan San Andreas, and a 52-year-old swimming coach James Cutrone.
Attorney General Christopher Porrino told PIX 11, a New Jersey news company, "The men we arrested lurked in the shadows of the internet and social media looking for opportunities to sexually assault young children or to view such unspeakable assaults by sharing child pornography".
The recovered child pornography had children "depicted being raped", Porrino said.
Director of the Division of Criminal Justice Elie Honig told PIX 11, "We've made these proactive child protection investigations a top priority by adding more staff for them at the state level and considerable new resources, including the mobile forensics lab and electronics detection dog." The electronic detection dog is 2-year-old German Shepherd named Mega. He is the only canine in the U.S. that has successfully detected digital devices and picked up the scent of TPPO.
Kwak, Min Jung = abiel@ajunews.com
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