DALLAS — More than 30 law enforcement agencies around North Texas arrested nearly 60 people in a month-long operation aimed at rescuing child victims of online sexual exploitation.
The operation, Operation Janus, resulted in 80 charges against 59 people, and rescued 28 children from online sexual abuse, police said.
Investigators also seized electronic devices and terabytes of data used during these crimes, which are being forensically examined and may lead to other offenders being investigated, police added.
Plano Detective Jeff Rich, who investigates technology-facilitated crimes against children as is also a child exploitation task force officer with the FBI, said some of the suspects were meeting physically with children while others were sharing images with devices. The charges ranged from possession of contraband material of child exploitation through hands-on offenses.
"Our goal of rescuing children from future abuse is to make sure this doesn't continue happening to them," Rich said during a press conference.
Rich also said this operation is not the end and that more warrants would be coming, along with additional operations and investigations.
Several of the people arrested were in "positions of trust," Rich said, but he wouldn't elaborate further as to what he meant by that.
Rich said he was not surprised by the outcome of the operation, and that people are sharing this child-exploitative material over technology "pretty regularly."
“The people charged as a result of this operation preyed on some of our most vulnerable, our children," Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said in a statement. "I applaud the dedication of these task force groups, including members of the Dallas Police Department, to bring these suspects to justice. We will never stop working to identify, locate and apprehend these predators to make our community safer for our children.”
FBI Dallas Acting Special Agent in Charge James J. Dwyer said in a statement that Operation Janus allowed law enforcement to collectively support each other by sharing resources and intelligence to catch predators in the act and recover children to protect them from further harm.
Police said the operation began on Jan. 16 and continued through Feb. 10. During that time, law enforcement across North Texas used computer crimes investigators to focus resources on identifying and rescuing children in North Texas communities who have fallen prey to online predators.
Some of those arrested were trafficking illegal images and videos of children forced into sexual acts, police said.
“The innocence of children must be protected at all costs," said Plano Police Chief Ed Drain in a statement. "I am proud of the work we do to collectively bring to justice those who seek to harm our children through online means and for the rescue of these children from future abuse as we work to bring safety, healing, and justice to these victims and their families."