DECATUR, Ga. — Over 200 digital devices were searched and 11 people in Georgia were arrested and charged with child exploitation offenses, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday.
The department said the operation "Happy New Year" investigated and served warrants in Clayton, DeKalb, Newton, Spalding, Gwinnett and Fulton counties over four days.
Information on the 11 people came from CyberTips with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Cases involve adults using computers or any digital device to download child abuse material and people talking online to a child in a sexual, explicit or obscene way.
Agents went through 230 devices, and GBI said many were taken into evidence for additional "digital forensic processing, which will likely result in more arrests."
More about the operation below,
Operation “Happy New Year” is part of the ongoing effort by the Georgia 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. 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.
Anyone with information about these cases or other cases of child exploitation is asked to contact the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation Unit at 404-270-8870 or report via the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children CyberTipline at CyberTipline.org.
Anonymous tips can also be submitted by calling 1-800-597-TIPS(8477), online at https://gbi.georgia.gov/submit-tips-online, or by downloading the See Something, Send Something mobile app.
