Arrests Made In Undercover Operation As New Mexico Prosecutor Points Finger At Meta for Online Predator Activity
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — Three men are suspected of utilizing Meta’s social media platforms to target and solicit sex with minors. Charges against them were revealed by New Mexico’s top prosecutor on Wednesday.
Following a months-long undercover investigation, the suspects were linked to fictitious accounts created by the state Department of Justice, leading to the arrests. Around the time the state filed a legal case against the social media behemoth in December, alleging Meta was neglecting to take reasonable safety precautions to guarantee children’s safety on its platforms, the inquiry got underway.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez of New Mexico stated during a press conference on Wednesday that the suspects were open about their sexual interest in youngsters and that they exchanged explicit sexual content through Facebook Messenger.
How readily these people were able to locate the made-up undercover identities worries us greatly, according to Torrez. “And it’s a wake-up call for all of us to realize how serious these kinds of threats are, to be honest.”
He blamed CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta officials, saying the business was prioritizing profits over the needs of families with young children.
“We are just sick of the rhetoric for those of us doing this work,” he remarked. “We have had enough of hearing politicians, members of Congress, and members of our communities being told that every reasonable measure has been taken to prevent this kind of behavior.”
Meta refuted the claims and restated on Wednesday that it works with law enforcement to investigate and prosecute offenders and that it uses technology to stop suspicious adults from locating or connecting with minors and teens on its apps.
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The business added that it had employed child safety specialists, reported content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and distributed resources and information to other organizations in an effort to identify and remove predators.
“This is a continuous battle, as committed offenders modify their strategies across various platforms in an attempt to avoid safeguards,” Meta stated via email.
Although Torrez stated it’s too soon to determine whether the state attorney general’s office’s efforts to find predators who prey on children will have an impact on the civil case, the office will keep searching for such individuals.
As part of the complaint, prosecutors in New Mexico claim to have obtained internal documents from Meta employees that indicate the firm estimates that 100,000 minors are sexually harassed on its platforms every day.
Fernando Clyde, Marlon Kellywood, and Christopher Reynolds were named as the three defendants in the criminal case. On charges of child solicitation by electronic communication device, prosecutors want to place them in detention until their trial.
Attorneys who could speak on behalf of Clyde and Kellywood are not listed in court documents, and hearings have not yet been scheduled. There was a message left for Reynolds’s public defender’s office.