Agent: Sexual exploitation of children on the rise

Louisiana is on track to have 10,000 cases of online sexual exploitation of children this year, the special agent over cybercrime with the state attorney general’s office said Thursday.

The potential 3,872 case jump over last year is part of what Agent David Ferris called a “ very disturbing trend” noted over the past 12 years.

Ferris was in Ruston to train law enforcement officers and others participating in the Domestic Abuse Resistance Team’s annual “Collaboration is the Key” conference.

The one-day event centered on specific techniques for dealing with internet and domestic violence crimes.

Thursday’s conference was the first one in four years. DART suspended the event first in the wake of the 2019 tornado, then because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ferris said sextortion of children statewide has increased since the pandemic. The COVID lockdown meant youngsters had more online access and spent more time online, as did would-be predators, he said.

“Around 2020 we started seeing an exponential growth (in cases),” he said.

Prior to COVID, Louisiana’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force was seeing about 2,000 cases annually. Now the volume is so high the office’s six agents can’t work all the cases.

“So, we had to make some really horrible decisions. What kid do you save?” Ferris said.

He told a story of a Baton Rouge honor student who fell victim to a boyfriend who blackmailed the girl into sending apparently provocative selfies and videos.

“I do not envy kids these days,” Ferris said, “and this is why. There is no room for error. They can’t make mistake. Mistakes are memorialized on the internet forever.”

The teen’s boyfriend and three of his friends were subsequently arrested, he said. The victim is recovering.