NEWTON COUNTY, Ga. — The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said this week that two people were arrested in Newton County on child exploitation charges following a multi-agency investigation that began with unrelated cybertips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The GBI did not say how exactly those tips eventually led them to the two suspects, but said they involved "the possession and/or distribution of explicit child sexual abuse material, commonly referred to as child pornography, which resolved to Newton County."
On Thursday they executed two search warrants that resulted in the arrests of a 17-year-old and 39-year-old.
According to the bureau, the 17-year-old faces eight counts of sexual exploitation of children, five for possession of child pornography and three for distribution. The 39-year-old faces four counts of distribution and an addiitonal count of tampering with evidence.
The two suspects are now in custody at the Newton County Jail.
The GBI said its Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit was assisted in the investigation by the Newton County Sheriff's Office, the GBI Atlanta Regional Office and the GBI West Metro Regional Drug Enforcement Office.
"This investigation is part of the ongoing effort by the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, housed within the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit, to identify those involved in the child pornography trade," a statement said. "The ICAC Program, created by the U.S. Department of Justice, was developed in response to the increasing number of children and teenagers using the Internet, the proliferation of child pornography, and the heightened online activity by predators searching for unsupervised contact with underage victims."
The bureau asks anyone with information about crimes of child exploitation to call its Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit at 404-270-8870.
