The arrests
stemmed from a two-month operation in April and May tracking
alleged offenders who use the Internet to lure youths and
traffic them into commercial sexual exploitation, child
pornography and traveling abroad to engage in child sex tourism,
it said in a news release.
The arrests were part of Operation Broken Heart, which last year
netted 275 arrests for child sexual predation.
In Texas, for example, 17 men were charged with a range of
crimes that included stalking children on the Internet for sex,
and possession and distribution of child pornography, it said.
Among the men arrested in Texas were three soldiers and a former
employee of the Boys and Girls Club of Central Texas.
"Predators use technology in sinister and inventive ways to
reach their child victims across state and national boundaries,"
Robert Listenbee, administrator of the department's juvenile
justice and delinquency prevention program, said in the news
release.
(Reporting by Stella Dawson, editing by Alisa Tang. Please
credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of
Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights,
corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)
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