(KCPW News) For more than a month, the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force worked with law enforcement agencies from around the state to net the largest bust of child pornographers in Utah history. ICAC Commander Jessica Farnsworth says 39 people were arrested, and another 114 are under investigation.
“A lot of these guys are in positions of special trust,” says Farnsworth. “This is what makes it so hard is that we can’t say to our children: beware of this type of person, because what I saw this last month is that these people are masters at leading dual lives, being prominent in the community.”
Operation FrostyLime Squeeze got its name from the FrostWire and LimeWire file-sharing services that are used to share child porn.
The state says if someone spent 15 seconds viewing each photo that was seized, that person would be viewing child pornography non-stop for 55 years. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says what concerns him the most is how fast the problem is growing across the state.
“The child pornographers we focused primarily on in this case, they grew exponentially with the advent of peer-to-peer networks because they felt like they could continue to doing what they were doing at no risks to themselves,” said the attorney general. “And so it does continue to grow despite the fact that we’re after them and they’re risking it and that just tells you how addictive this is.”
The non-profit Operation Kids helped fund overtime shifts to enable the investigation, and to train and assist law enforcement agencies to help with the case. The state says altogether, 37 federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies took part in the bust. Five of those arrested were minors.
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