BATON ROUGE, LA – Joined by numerous police departments,
sheriff’s offices, and state and federal agencies at a press conference this afternoon
– Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry today announced the arrests of 51
people on child exploitation charges as part of Operation Broken Heart.
The Louisiana Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force participated
in Operation Broken Heart IV, a two-month long National ICAC investigative and
prevention effort alongside 60 coordinated task forces across the country –
representing over 3,500 federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
“My office is committed to doing all we can to protect our State’s children
from predators,” said General Landry. “The great teamwork by all our ICAC
partners, including the LBI’s examiners and investigators, has resulted in the
arrests of 51 people from all parts of Louisiana.”
“Most of us cannot imagine the horrific things these dedicated law
professionals have to see and hear to bring child predators to justice,” added
General Landry. “But all of us are grateful for their work to save children’s
lives.”
In an effort to raise awareness of the importance of internet safety, the
Internet Crimes Against Children taskforce – which includes 155 law enforcement
agencies throughout Louisiana – arrested the 51 perpetrators from April 1st to
May 31st on charges ranging from possession, distribution, and production of
sexual abuse images and videos of children to Solicitation of a Minor.
“Sometimes the number of arrests and charges causes us to forget there are
victims in these situations,” explained General Landry. “Every time a video or
image is viewed, a child is re-victimized; and unfortunately, we have seen that
a high percentage of people who engage in child pornography end up being hands
on abusers.”
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Operation Broken Heart aims to (1) arrest as many offenders as possible who:
(a) possess, manufacture, and distribute child pornography; (b) engage in
online enticement of children for sexual purposes; (c) engage in the commercial
sexual exploitation of children (commonly referred to as child prostitution),
(d) engage in child sex tourism (traveling abroad for the purpose of sexually
abusing foreign children) and (2) provide community education to prevent
technology related child exploitation and abuse.
