Arkansas State Police make multiple arrests, rescue multiple victims as part of national child exploitation investigation

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Arkansas State Police officials announced Tuesday that their Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force made multiple arrests and rescued multiple children in coordination with recent national operations.

Officials said the operations were targeting child exploitation and named Operation Safe Online Summer (SOS) and Operation Cookie Crumbs. The two operations ran through April and May.

SOS ran from April 1 to 30 and involved 62 Internet Crime Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces across the country. This operation focused on child sexual abuse material trafficking and offenders who exploited children online.

Officials said that during SOS, ASP ICAC opened 76 investigations, made 54 arrests, including four hands-on offenders, rescued 13 children from ongoing abuse, identified 24 child victims and submitted 39 cases for prosecution. During operations, they said 86 search warrants were executed and 248 devices were examined, including an analysis of 13 terabytes of data.

Operation Cookie Crumbs was a state-led operation that ran from May 1 to 26, focusing on the digital tracking of offenders. ASP officials stated that the agency collaborated with the Department of Community Corrections to monitor known offenders and identify emerging threats.

Officials said Cookie Crumbs ended with 26 investigations opened, 28 arrests, including one hands-on offender, one victim rescued, two new child victims identified and 12 cases submitted for prosecution. They added that 31 residences were checked for compliance, and 70 devices were examined, including five terabytes of data.

ICAC officials said the agency also did community outreach during this time to equip Arkansas communities with the tools and knowledge to combat child exploitation.

Any information about possible exploitation of children may be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at CyberTipLine.org.