Police in South Carolina has busted 11 men targeting children online in an undercover sting operation.
On Monday, Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon announced that his office had caught the men sexually messaging who they thought were teenagers on several social media apps, including Textnow, Facebook Messenger, Kik, Google Voice, and Skout. Each of the men were arranging to meet with minors for sex, but unbeknownst to the perpetrators, they were communicating with undercover officers.
“After the suspect asked to meet with ‘the child,’ detectives were staged at a predetermined meeting spot to arrest them,” Koon explained in a statement.
The oldest man arrested in the operation was 67-year-old, Robert Mitchum Nichols. He was charged with criminal solicitation of a minor and second-degree attempted criminal sexual conduct with a minor. The youngest offender is 20-year-old Hunter Allen Trammell, who received similar charges.
Koon says more arrests are expected as the investigation continues to identify other suspects who tried soliciting minors during the sting. As sexual predators such as these continue to scour the internet in search of victims, Koon urges parents to monitor their children’s online activity closely.
