The Checkup with Doctor Mike - “There’s No Safe Place For Children Online” | FBI Agent Interview

Episode Date: February 18, 2024

Supervisory Special Agent Brenda Born leads the FBI's operation behind battling Online Blackmail, otherwise known as "Sextortion". This is a horrible practice with predators on the internet will target children, pretend they are friendly, convince them to share explicit images, and then hold those images ransom in exchange for money. This not only results is significant financial loss for children and families, but can destroy the mental health of a child or even lead to death. The FBI contacted me about doing a piece on Online Blackmail, and I agreed it was a very serious problem affecting young people that we need to discuss openly and often. Information on Online Blackmail:https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes/sextortion Here is a link to where people can submit tips or information to the FBI:https://tips.fbi.gov/home 00:00 Intro 01:28 What Is Online Blackmail? 07:50 Thoughts For Parents 10:56 Online Gaming 11:45 How Predators Use Social Media 13:50 The Internet Is Like Driving 14:39 Who Are These Predators? 16:20 What Patterns Are There? 22:50 How To Fix Things 26:16 Worst Case She's Seen 36:55 Life In The FBI Executive Producer and Host: Doctor Mike Varshavski Produced by Dan Owens and Sam Bowers Art by Caroline Weigum

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or go to explorevolvo.com. Td Bank knows that running a small business is a journey, from startup to growing and managing your business. That's why they have a dedicated small business advice hub on their website to provide tips and insights on business banking to entrepreneurs. No matter the stage of business you're in, visit td.com slash small business advice to find out more or to match with a TD Small Business Banking Account Manager. Out of FBI Minneapolis, we have the largest traditional online blackmail case in the FBI. We had a subject that had online victimized over 1,000 girls. We have victims in all 50 states and 14 countries. We did a search worn at his house.

We took evidence. There were over 2,000 phone numbers. There were over 2,500 accounts. that he was communicating with. Just seeing the conversations, even though we didn't live it, the sheer amount of lack of anything for those victims was eye-opening for all of us. Agent Brenda Bourne has worked for the FBI for 18 years,

specializing in cybercrimes and crimes against children. For the last few years, she has focused her efforts on battling online blackmail, a horrifying and growing epidemic of predators targeting children to acquire explicit images both for their personal satisfaction and financial exploitation. This is a gravely serious topic about safety on the internet, where predators are advancing their skill sets faster than law enforcement can keep up. The FBI actually contacted me about doing a video on the subject, and I found it so important

that we invited Agent Born right to our studio in New York to talk through actionable steps of keeping yourself and our children safe from threats hiding in every corner online. agent born hi you've brought up a very important subject of something you've noticed that's happening across the united states as well as across the globe but it's become an incredibly prevalent issue here tell me the issue that is top of mind for you at the moment well what we're seeing in the FBI is an increase in online blackmail of our youth and online blackmail is where some targets a minor and they use or threatened to use images that the minor had previously sent that person and they threatened to use them and they demand something in return money or additional

images or videos and the images and videos are usually explicit in nature and when did this come on the radar of the FBI is this a relatively new issue or is this something that's been ongoing There's really kind of two types of online blackmail. One that we call traditionally motivated and one that we call financially motivated. The traditionally motivated has been around for a few years. The financially motivated really came about in the beginning of 2022 is when we started seeing it. And for me specifically in FBI Minneapolis, I really saw it around the March April timeframe of 2022. But from a Out October of 2021 to March of 2023, the FBI saw over 6,000 victims of the financially motivated online blackmail. And that's 6,000, I'm assuming, reported cases. Correct. Is there any kind of guesses or theories of how many go unreported percentage-wise?

Oh, I can't even begin to guess. I would imagine a lot. This is online blackmail with kids. It's something very difficult for them to report. They're embarrassed. They're ashamed. They just want it to end. And so that is the ones that we know about for sure.

But there are a lot that go unreported. And this is specifically targeted at a teenage child population, or is this happening across the board all ages as well? So in looking at the differences between traditionally motivated and financially motivated, they both start out the same in terms of the scheme of the online blackmail. They target our youth. And for me, one of the biggest things, too, is just to make sure it's clear is federally, the FBI, we look at the online blackmail involving children because the images

and videos that they're taking are contraband. It's not something you can legally own, possess, distribute versus adults that can take images and it's not contraband. So just to make sure that I'm clear that what we're talking about it involves kids. But the scheme starts out the same. They're online somewhere interacting and engaging with a kid. They're pretending to be just like them building up that rapport, making it seem I'm just like you, gaining their trust. So they're acting as another youth. They're not pretending to be themselves. Correct. Yes. Okay. Yes. They're sharing photos, sharing videos. I'm just like you. Looking at their social media account, friending their friends, getting to be able to infiltrate their circle of trust.

And then they get to the point where they able to get that image or video. And once they have that, that's where the schemes kind of split. Our traditionally motivated online blackmail, those predators, they want additional images and videos. They want it for their own satisfaction. So they're going to try and prolong that as much as they can with that victim because they really want to keep that person

sending them the material that they want. The financially motivated predators, they just want money. So as soon as they get that image or video, it's almost instant. Now you need to send me 500, I want gift cards. I want something of payment. And that's kind of where they split in terms of their motivations. Now, in looking at traditionally motivated online blackmail, that tends to be girls from

about the age of 10 to 17. However, the FBI has, unfortunately, seen an alarming increase in the number of victims around the age of 7. So while we tend to be 10 to 17, we have seen it getting younger and younger. Financially motivated online blackmail, those tend to be males and from about 13, 14, 14 to 17. And why do you think that there's a demographic difference there? You know, I'm not really sure. It can really be anybody. It could just be the personas, you know, boys going through, you know, body changes, curiosity changes quicker than girls, easier to get them to send and take pictures. I don't really have. any data or statistics behind that. That might be something medically you can provide some

information. But it definitely tends to be boys in the financial and girls in the traditional, but it can be anyone. And we're also seeing there's an increased period of time of building that trust in the girls and in the traditional type of online blackmail versus the boys. Girls can take a couple of weeks. Boys can take a couple of hours. And the fact that that they're getting younger and younger when being tricked, is that due to the fact that children have more access with their phones, iPads, all of that? Is that the main driver of it? Or is there something more unique in their strategies that they've developed? No, I think anywhere that a kid is online, whether it's their iPad, their phone, their gaming

counselor, anywhere that they're online, there's a child predator. So if a child is in line, they may encounter. So are there any safe spaces for children online? I would say no. If you're a kid that's online, there is the possibility that you could be targeted. In 2022, unfortunately, that's the most recent statistic that we have from the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children. In the year 2022, the National Center for Missing Exploited Children had over 80,000 cyber tips related to the online exploitation of minors, over 80,000. And these tips are coming from concerned parents, children, what's the general? It could be service providers. It could be parents. It could be kids themselves reporting it.

Wow. That's pretty incredible. And if you're a parent, and you're hearing that, makes me feel like you wouldn't, and I'm not a parent, so I wouldn't know. But my thought would say, I got to take away all internet access for my child up until they reach a certain age. Is that the recommendation of the FBI at this point? What we can say is having parents look at their controls, making sure and having those tough conversations. You know, being a parent is the hardest job. And adding technology onto it is making it even harder. I'm a parent. I have 12-year-old triplets. I deal with this all the time because my kids don't have phones like their friends.

So I get asked all the time, when do I get a phone? So believe me, I get it. But it's one of the most important jobs. and parents are the security sign outside of the home. And so you kind of think about it. What measures would you take to protect your home from having somebody wanting to physically enter your home and harm your kid?

And that's something you need to look at on a phone. Have you seen on the larger scale of when this happens, does having a parent who's having high oversight of their child be a risk factor in a way where it reduces? reduces the chance of this happening or in the other direction where a child wants to be secretive and do more of these things. Basically, is it beneficial to be really protective of your child in this scenario? I don't have any data that would support that either way. One of the things we do is just try to say about being on top of the controls. And it's, this is, we have in our family,

like a repeat list. Did you brush your teeth today? Did you do your homework? Did you make your ? The pilot checklist. Exactly. This is a conversation that you, you know, kids' minds are developing. This is a conversation you need to have repeatedly and repeatedly look at the controls. Kids are smart. You can lock that puppy down and they are sophisticated and they can get around it. So it does come down to, it's a balancing act of trying to allow them to gain their independence because you want them to be contributing members of society to protecting them from harm. Yeah, that's always the tricky part when parents come into my office or the child is there for the visit and I ask the child to step out and I speak with the parents alone.

In balancing that very important stage of you want to give independence, but it has to be earned. It has to be done in a safe way. And that's not easy these days when the phones are so ever present and children are, you know, away from home and parents are away from home and they have multiple jobs. So I could see how difficult of a burden it is. And it might be even easier to just say, no phones until a certain age. And then you've earned it. So I could totally see why one would come to that realization.

And it's not just phones. It's their iPads. You know, a lot of schools use iPads in their curriculum. It could be their gaming systems. If they're online playing any of the online games, that they could have that chat feature. And they could gain in conversations, even within your house,

they may not have the phone, but they could be chatting with somebody on their gaming system. So does that happen? Like I play PlayStation. So, you know, most of my conversations are people just yelling at me that I'm not so good, given the fact that I'm older these days. But for folks that allow their children to play games, because they're like, oh, they're playing games.

Who cares? They're not meeting people. But you say they actually are. If it has the chat function on it, they can meet people. Wow. So that does happen. And back to your original point, too, then even on the phone or apps or even the gaming, the kids are talking and they're exchanging photos.

And the photos, that's one of the things we always hear is, well, I really thought I was talking to that person. Well, that person in that photo may actually be a real person. that's just not the person you're talking to. Unless you physically know that person, you truly don't know if that is the individual that's behind the chats that you are having those conversations with. And these predators, they're master manipulators.

So they use and exploit the kids' social media in a couple different ways. So one, as they're gaining their trust and they're infiltrating their circle, that gives them access to other kids. Because realistically, that one victim, a majority of their people they're talking with are going to be just like them

are going to be kids. So it opens up their pool for victims. But then from a financial perspective, we've seen them exploiting that list to help aid in the abuse of that child. So for example, after they have sent the picture and they come back,

send me $500. If you don't, I'm going to send this video that you took to your hockey team because I'm in your circle. I know all your hockey friends because you all wear your jerseys. I see the video set you upload for your games. And I've created a group with all them,

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Only in Peter, September 26th. Experienced in IMAX. You came out. So our predators, our master manipulators, but they're also using that media against them because if they send that video out, they are hoping and relying on the peer pressure that kids are under, that those kids will aid by bullying that kid and helping in the abuse of that child. They're really leveraging psychological, like, concepts here. that are really well known to us.

They're actually very well known to marketers. And that's something I talk about frequently on my channel when people are trying to sell snake oil, where they'll say, oh, you know, I just sold this product to your neighbor. And they'll say the neighbor's name. And now because it's more familiar, you're more likely to trust them.

And I could see that they're using many of those same principles with children because, oh, if you know person X, that means you're part of the circle. For parents, teachers, those who supervise young folks. what should be the takeaway here besides putting on some moderation features on their devices? For parents, one of the biggest things is the communication. It's a hard topic. Communicating, having the hard conversation and keeping it on your repeat list. This is not a one and done type conversation. You need to keep having the conversation with them, with your kids.

And I look at it as, you know, when kids get to the age when they're looking at driving and you hand over those kids. You don't just hand over and not seeing anything, right? You talk to them about, well, who's going to be in the car with you? Don't be distracted. Don't, you know, do you have gas in the car? It's the air in your tires. When was last oil change? You take all these safety precautions to make sure they don't get injured because you view the vehicle as a mechanism that could cause harm to your kid.

But we don't do that with our phones. And it is being used to cause harm to our kids. That makes sense. And for children, I mean, what is one to do if you find yourself in that situation, perhaps a little bit further down the line when you've already sent explicit images or, you know, you've had a long conversation with this person. They're looking to get financial benefit from that. How do you proactively take a stance?

Tell somebody. And somebody means what? An adult, a trusted friend, a teacher, somebody don't, a lot of times these kids, they suffer in silence because they're embarrassed and they're ashamed. Us in law enforcement, we can't help them if we don't know about it. And what help is given once they raise those flags? Depending on the type of, so a lot of times what we're seeing with the financial online blackmail is the predators are overseas.

And unfortunately, depending on where they're at, we'll determine what, if anything, we can do. The FBI does have legal attachés around the world. So our field offices can work with them, provide them information, and then they can work with our foreign partners and determine what, if anything, we can do to try and identify those individuals. If the person is here in the United States, then clearly we can look at opening an investigation and trying to identify them and then holding them accountable for their actions. But none of that can happen if we don't know about it. And then in addition is the well-being of our victims. First and foremost, the FBI takes a very victim-centric approach in these types of cases. We want to make sure these kids are in a good

mental health state and not going down the path of any impulsive decisions that could lead to some horrible permanent solutions for them. So first and foremost is just making sure they're okay and nobody can help them if we don't know about it. And what patterns have you noticed in children going through this level of trauma? For some of the long-term ones, a lot of it is extreme changes in behavior. You know, straight-A students, all of a sudden they don't want to go to school. They were in athletics. They don't want to leave their room. It can be changes in their grades, changes in friends. They're very withdrawn. They have anxieties. All of a sudden, they're coming, they have, you know, dependencies on alcohol or drugs, depression, changes in

their mental health state. One of the issues that we see as well is trying to see a pattern between traditional versus the financial motivated because the traditional seems to be more a long term, you can definitely see the changes in the behaviors. When dealing with the financially motivated, some of those cases, they start and have an impact within a couple hours. So a parent could just go out and go to the grocery store. And while they're gone, not even know that this has happened. And there are examples of this happening? There are examples of that. That's terrible.

Where we have had cases with financially motivated that within a matter of, let's say, 15, 20 minutes, they're already talking and asking for images. Within a couple hours, those images are shared, and then the exploitation begins, and unfortunately it goes down bad paths. Wow. So those are a lot harder to see changes in behavior because they can happen a lot quicker. I can put myself in a child's position where you've put, trust in this person who you thought was your friend is obviously blackmailing you now.

You realize they're not your friend. You realize they're not who they said they were. Where do children, as examples that you've witnessed, where do they end up getting the money to pay these criminals? We've seen some take mom and dad's credit cards and use them. Wow. Some have their own accounts. They'll use other payment applications to send the money. Some will go out and if they have their own allowance money and get gift cards. And once they send that money, does the abuse stop? I feel like they would just continue since their criminals.

Like it's not an honor system for them. There's no pattern to the behavior. We've seen instances where the family's paid and they've continued to send it out or they've come back and ask for more money. We've seen instances where families paid and nothing additional has happened. We've seen instances where family hasn't paid

and they've sent it out. and we've seen where the family hasn't paid and they haven't sent it out. There's been no pattern to the behavior of these predators. So if you're a family member and you're facing this dilemma, it's call the FBI, figure it out with the team, rather than make decisions on your own. I would call and talk to your local law enforcement, call the FBI's tip line, talk to somebody about it.

And one of the things we can say related to the financially motivated is, because everybody's always concerned, do they know where my kid is? Are they going to come after my kid? They're demanding this money. We do know, based off of the experience of the cases we've had, that a majority of the predators are overseas and are not within the bounds of the United States. For providers, we're health care providers, I see patients that are, you know, one-year-old or a hundred one-year-old. So I see the gamut. And I see children come in that are oftentimes

reluctant to talk about these situations. Have you employed any strategies to making victims feel safe in having these conversations in the open? Because I, I imagine, like, you're a stranger, you're coming in, you have a badge, you have authority. It's scary, just like I have a white coat and a stethoscope. What's the best way to facilitate these conversations? So the FBI has a couple positions that help us when we're dealing with these investigations involving children. First, we have victim specialists. Our victim specialist works with the family in terms of, are there any resources available that could help them?

Do they need, you know, some suggestions for some counseling? and we can help put them into touch with facilities that could help them in their healing process. In addition, we have child adolescent and forensic interviewers. So these are individuals within the FBI. They are not special agents, but they're specifically trained to talk with kids. And they have experience talking with kids in a relaxed environment that can give them the opportunity to open up to them. Because we do recognize somebody sitting down next to an agent with a badge and a gun can be scary. And we're truly not scary, but we recognize that it does play into it.

And that's why the FBI does have that program. And we use those, we call them short of our cafes. And we use them to help us in interviews with kids because they are trained to be able to communicate with kids on a level that they can open up. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct. child's vision, they slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with Stellist lenses for myopia control. Learn more at SLOR.com and ask your family eye care professional

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in how they have we always we always known that these predators are master manipulators but how they're using the social media the accounts to infiltrate those groups and then it's like an open playground for them for all these victims And once they get into one group, it's like they can filter through everybody. And within a matter of a couple hours, they're friends with half a school. Does that mean they then start doing the same strategy with everyone at that school? Possibly. They possibly can't.

So that's like you kind of see almost pockets of this happening? Sometimes we do. Wow. Okay. And I understand why you're targeting the youth in this specific scenario. And obviously it's important to target those who are targeting our youth. But it's very clear here from an FBI standpoint that that content is illegal. So it's illegally clear in those scenarios.

What I've experienced on social media is people doing online blackmail with taking my image, pretending to be me as a doctor and giving someone health advice, asking for money, saying ridiculous stories like, I'm kidnapped and I need help. And people send money. how do we combat this like misidentity, fraudulent identity crisis? Is it a matter of education? Is it a matter of platforms needing to do a better job? Has there been any work on that?

No, that is a great question. And I think it does come down to education and talking to people that if they get those phone calls that, hey, I'm stranded over in this country, send money to help me get a plane ticket that before you do that, take a minute, think about it, reach out to other people, is this really true? And that actually leads to a good point, because that's one of the things we have seen recently is a little bit of an uptick in that happening in the financial online blackmail, where a kid may not send an explicit image or picture, but it may just be a normal, so to speak, selfie. And they're transposing their head onto an already obtained image.

Oh, so they're using some kind of AI software. To use that, yes. Wow. And we've started seeing a little bit of an uptick. And what is AI going to mean to this type of threat? Time will tell. And it has the same impact on the child. The child panics and worse.

They'll send it back to the kid and say, okay, you sent me that. But here, I'm going to send this one out to everybody. And again, master manipulators that are great at their trade craft. So it looks legitimate. And to that kid, it's like, well, that's not me, but it looks believable. everybody's going to believe that. It is me. So we have seen that kind of starting to bleed into the threat of online blackmail. Is there a universal recommendation where it's like unless you meet someone in person, unless you video chat with them, they're not real? Like, is that a reasonable

strategy? I think it is if you do not physically know that person, then you do not know if it is really that individual behind it. And I also, even just talking about, is it really that person or not? You know, one of the things I ask kids when I do talk to them is, would you run through your school and your underwear? Most of them say no. But once you send that picture, that's exactly what can happen. Whether you know the person or not, once you let that picture go, you lose all control of that image.

And anybody can send it anywhere and post it online in any platform. So it's like, we need a class almost on digital literacy. For me, this is 100% preventable. Don't take the pick. And I mean, kids are going to make mistakes. They are. So unfortunately, that might happen. But the idea of the trust component of signaling signs that they should be on the lookout for

or the idea of just a blanket statement that if you didn't meet them, they're not real. That would be an easier rule to follow, unlike other ones where you might say, okay, there's some new ones here and you have to apply this. That might be harder for a child, especially if there is a youngest. seven, eight years old, as you mentioned in some of these cases. And that's also some of, it's a good point where some of the things we are seeing in terms of trends is they'll, the predators will meet on one platform and they'll ask them to move to another platform.

So they can start building that trust more on an individual type basis. And then when they start asking for pictures, I think those should be some red flags of, I don't, I don't really know this person. They asked me to move to another platform. and now all of a sudden they're asking for my pictures. What has been the most extreme case of this that you've seen in your time? We have, out of FBI Minneapolis, we have the largest traditional online blackmail case in the FBI.

Wow. What does that entail? We had a subject that had online victimized over 1,000 girls. And that subject is in Minneapolis, or this is just being handled by your... He was located in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was in our territory. FBI Minneapolis. FBI has 56 field offices, and we each cover geographical regions. So FBI Minneapolis covers the state of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. So this particular subject lived in St. Paul, Minnesota, and online met and pretended to be personas. He actually created over 75 personas, pretending to be just like them out there and terrorized what we believe is. is over 1,000 victims. And you've been able to identify these thousand victims or not yet?

Right now, we actually were able in the last couple of weeks to identify a couple more. So we are at 762. We have victims in all 50 states and 14 countries. So this one person created that much havoc online using online platforms and applications. So it was like a full-on network at that point from this one individual starting it? Correct. He did. And he kept, he could go, he could go, years without communicating with the victim. Then he'd circle back and engage with them. He never

forgot them. He would send their images back saying, hey, don't forget about me. I'm still here. Send me more images. And that's knowing what I know about mental health, that type of chronic stress is the worst type where you're never getting adequate rest. You're always on edge for an extended period of time of what if it happens again? What if this comes back? And then it does. And then you're worried some more. So I can only imagine the cognitive and mental health harms that come from something like that. And that came out from our victims in the interviews because they didn't know who he was because they thought he was somebody else based off of the images and videos that he shared with them. And so they didn't know who he was and they didn't know where he was. So there's a

lot of times we heard in our victim interviews, I was concerned, is it somebody that I knew? Was it somebody at school? Was it somebody in my community? Some of our victims were afraid to leave their house because they just didn't know where he was. Did it give them any level of reassurance finding out who the person was? Yes. How did they react to that information? Very emotional. Very emotional we had when it came to the time of the sentencing for him.

This particular subject, he received a 43-year sentence in the District of Minnesota as well as lifetime supervised release. and we did have some victims actually come and provide victim and impact statements at his sentencing. It was very emotional and a lot of them were in their impact statements and they were talking to the court had said, this is the first time I've ever seen him.

This is the first time I even get to see what he looks like. And we actually, the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota did a great job at bringing in victims in their support system, but we actually had somebody show up that we weren't expecting

and we were like, who is this person? And we had found out the week before, one of our sister offices had gone out to do an identification for us and when the mom answered the door and they had told her why they were there and she was just like oh my gosh this explains everything with my daughter this explains the last years her behavior changes and everything and that mother went online and looked up and saw when the sentencing was going to be and so she drove and showed up there and she actually asked to speak and just the raw emotion in her statement to the court about not only how it impacted her daughter, but how it impacted the entire

family was very powerful. What stands out from that trial for you, words-wise, that they shared as victims? For me, and I think my investigative team, after the sentencing, we went back and my investigative team, along with the victims, we actually got to sit down and talk to them. Once we started looking into this individual from an investigative standpoint, And we did a search warrant at his house. We took evidence that would help us determine, you know, exactly what he was doing. And once we started looking at those, that's really when we started to see the expansive criminal conduct that this one person has done, had done. So what the FBI did is we created a team of not only agents but tactical specialists and investigative support personnel to help us identify and go through all these victims.

So for example, one of the things we had seen and going through our analysis of all of the evidence that we were able to seize in our search warrant was there were over 2,000 phone numbers. There were over 2,500 accounts that he was communicating with. And we needed to look at each one of those and determine are these victims, is this just normal day-to-day stuff that he was communicating with people? So it took an entire team to do that. And for all of us, once we were looking at evidence, just seeing the conversations, even though we were. didn't live it, it was like we were living it with them. Because we were seeing him say this, the victims say this, stop crying, do this. And I think just the sheer amount of lack of anything for those victims was eye-opening for all of us. And I've been with the FBI for over 18 years

and just hearing from the victims, seeing changes in their mental health state, some change is not so good, and how this had impacted their lives at such a young age was eye-opening. Once victims speak out to your office, other law enforcement agencies, as a way of perhaps encouraging folks to come forward, does it take some way? off their shoulders to speak to law enforcement and get help? I would say yes and kind of no. Yes, because they finally get to tell somebody. But they also have to relive it every time they tell somebody.

So when we deal with crimes involving children, our ultimate goal then is to identify the individual and hold them accountable. And throughout that process may require that victim telling their stories multiple times. in order for us to get to the point where we can hold them accountable. So while we take a very victim-centric approach, we also recognize... It's imperfect. Right. And that we need their statements.

They may have to testify if it goes to trial, which is why the United States Attorney's Office, as well as the FBI, have victim specialists that help throughout this process as we go through prosecution and recognizing, hey, This could be difficult. We need to talk about it here. We need to prep for trial. We need to. So know that if you are going to come forward, you may need to tell your story, but that's taken

into consideration by your office, that it's not just, oh, you're going to have to tell it willy-nilly. We're going to do the best that we can to make you feel as comfortable as possible. And the other thing, sorry, the other thing we did for this large case, because we recognized once the press release would come out that the magnitude of this individual, and it get out there the accounts that there could be other victims that read this and are like, oh my gosh, I believe I talked to him. So the United States Attorney's Office in the District of Minnesota actually created a website for people to go to and that they could put and fill out

a survey if they thought they were a victim of this particular individual, which also then helped and gave them a voice of being able to say, hey, hey, this might be me, can hear some information because looking back 10 years, data retentions and allowing us as investigators to be able to identify those victims, sometimes the information is not there. I'd love to be able to tell you we can identify all those, you know, over the thousand victims. Just not sure if we're going to be able to do that because they were minors at the time. Records are different. Retentions are different from now versus that. Accounts change, deleted, etc. But if somebody hears about it online and they're like, I could testify to this and explain, yeah. And we still want,

we still want that because even though we've held him accountable, he's, serving 43 years, to have those victims know we've identified him, he's not going to come back five years down the road and contact you again. That hopefully we can give them some closure and allow them to start to heal. Do you hold children to some degree, not liable, I guess that's not the right term, but the children that, let's say, gets sent the image by the predator or criminal, that then send it to their friends jokingly or teasingly or whatever things that kids do, do they bear any consequences for these actions?

We don't, we don't federally, we don't prosecute. Got it. We don't prosecute minors. Got it. But the big takeaway, I think, for that specifically is... Imagine it happened to you. Don't bully. Yeah.

Our adversaries are counting. Our adversaries know. Their bodies are going through changes. They're curious. their brains are developing, and peer pressure is significant, and they're counting on that peer pressure. So if they can get any one of their friends, if they send them that video, to bully them and give them a hard time, then they can come back and say, see what happened on how your hockey team reacted. How do you think your church youth group is going to respond?

So send me $500. So they are counting on the fact that they can use our kids against each other to further the abuse. Do you see any specific groups that have been more targeted than others outside of the gender differences? No. Poverty groups, wealthy children, nobody. They don't discriminate. Don't discriminate.

They're everywhere, every app, every platform, every operating system, basically. And your work that you've done, obviously, in this space is very commendable. You've been doing it for a period of time since this spike in March. of 2022. What was your work with the FBI of the decade-plus time that you spent there focused on then? So I've been in the FBI for just over 18 years. I spent time in the Washington field office as well as currently the Minneapolis field office. While at the Washington field office, I specialized in cyber crimes and then crimes against children. And then I also served some time at FBI headquarters in the cyber division before I ultimately ended up here at

FBI Minneapolis. When I think of children's cyber crimes, I think of about issues like this. Are there other issues that are ongoing that parents should be aware of? Yeah, there's other issues where you have predators that are online and they are sharing images with like-minded individuals. So creating their own group of predators and continuing exploitation by changing their collection, or not changing, but sharing their collection with each other. And for me, specifically at FBI Minneapolis, I oversee two different task forces. So I have the violent crimes task force. So we look at carjackings, Hobbs Act, fugitives, bank robberies, ATMs, missing adults. And then I have the child exploitation and human trafficking task force.

So a sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and then all things involving kids. And maybe this is a silly question, but I've always thought about it this way. Maybe it's totally inaccurate. Is anything that happens criminally online always an FBI case because internet is everywhere? It really depends on what we have to. We have to. kind of our lanes that we operate in, and depending on what the crime is, we'll determine what agency is the best one to work that specific threat. And maybe this is a juicy question, but I think it's valuable in asking, is there the drama that exists between interagency, you know, NYPD goes, this is our case, and you're like, no, this is our case, and you guys argue.

FBI, this, it takes a village. The FBI works with other federal law enforcement, our state partners, our local partners, our tribal partners to combat this threat. For FBI Crimes Against Children Unit, online blackmail is one of the top priorities. And for us, you know, we live in this great country. And we need to work together to protect our greatest asset. And that's our kids. Of course. So the image that media has painted for us, maybe through movies and such, of, you know,

CIA, NSA, FBI arguing, it's, That is of old age or never even happened. I'll work with anybody. In the end of the day, for me, the biggest thing is protecting our kids, holding those accountable and really right now trying to be more proactive and trying to get the message out. And that way, it's not always reactive for me when I get the phone calls. Everybody just tells me when I reach out there, like, you know, I know, I think you're a really

good person, but every time you show up, that means something bad happened. Yeah. And we're trying to be able to have a really good awareness program so that we can impact this threat. But whether what agency, at the end of the day, as long as we're protecting kids, that's what matters. For sure. As a doctor, I oftentimes hear horrific stories for my patients and admittedly does take a toll on me. Has it ever taken a toll on you experiencing and working in such a difficult field or one of your colleagues and how? How did you manage it or they manage it if they shared it with you?

This is a very difficult violation to work. And we are, those of us that work this violation, we're a very tight-knit community, and we look out for each other. And you learn to, everybody has their ways of dealing with the stress of this particular violation. Some people like to go run. Some people like to be involved in the arts. Everybody has their outlet that helps them maintain a good mental health. within a law enforcement perspective. But it's definitely heavy.

It is very heavy. Is that it true in general for all law enforcement that you have to see such negativity all the time that you need this outlet or coping strategy to work very well in order to be successful in the field? I would say yes. Unfortunately, we see probably the worst of our society and then dealing with kids makes it even harder.

And then as a parent myself, like I mentioned, I have 12-year-old triplets, trying to understand why anybody would even do some of the things that come across our desk from an investigative perspective is you just, you can't believe it. And I'm sure you've probably seen that in your own cases that you work. Yeah. Do you tell your triplets openly what you do? Yes, they know.

And what is their emotional response or I guess regular response? Do they find it interesting? Are they scared of it? Are they asking you and shooting a bunch of questions at you when you come home? Mom knows too much. I can't tell you the number of times my kids asked for a phone. That was like the number one thing on their list from Santa this year was a phone. And they know.

And I'll have, I'm very open in talking about this topic with them. And my daughter the one time was like, I need this, this, and a phone. And I was like, no, not really. ready for that and you're not getting a phone. Why am I not getting a phone? Because I don't want you to take inappropriate pictures of yourself. Mom, I'm not going to take inappropriate pictures. How many times do we got talking about this? And I'm like, I know you're not because you're not getting a phone.