ICE HSI helps remove more than 3,500 sexual predators from community, up 18% over last year

SEATTLE, Wash. – Each year, thousands of children around the world fall prey to sexual predators. These young victims are left with permanent psychological, physical, and emotional scars. Seeking to end this criminal activity and protect children worldwide, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) developed Operation Predator, an international initiative to identify, investigate and arrest child predators and dismantle the underground networks where they thrive. HSI’s goal is simple: To identify, investigate, and arrest child predators who possess, trade, or produce child sexual abuse material; travel overseas for sex with minors; or engage in the sex trafficking of children.

Over the years, HSI’s child exploitation prevention efforts morphed from a small center in Fairfax, Virginia into a worldwide initiative that includes agents across HSI Seattle’s area of responsibility (AOR), which spans Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. One of these major prevention efforts was the launch of HSI’s flagship initiative, Operation Predator, and key domestic and foreign partnerships, which have been paramount in the expansion of both its reach and success.

Special agents, investigators and analysts from across HSI have dedicated themselves to protecting children and rooting out predators for more than two decades. In FY 19, HSI initiated 4,224 child exploitation cases resulting in 3,771 criminal arrests, and identified or rescued 1,066 victims – an increase of nearly 18% over FY 18 and reflecting HSI’s firm commitment to ending these heinous crimes against children, wherever they occur.

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