Federal investigators in Arizona use international partnership to combat child sex crimes

SCOTTSDALE — Child sex crime knows no borders, and neither do the investigators working to stop it.

“We will find you, we will investigate you, and we will hold you accountable,” Jason Stevens, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Arizona, said during a media briefing Wednesday detailing how investigators are combating child sex exploitation internationally.

“We will cross jurisdictions, we will cross borders, and we will follow the evidence wherever it happens to lead us, because children are not commodities, children are not products, and children are not targets,” Stevens said.

The event highlighted an international partnership with Colombia that has resulted in 35 arrests during the last year and a half, including two Arizonans now serving life sentences.

“They are monsters,” said Federico Gutiérrez, the mayor of Medellín, Colombia.

Gutiérrez called child sex exploitation “the worst of the crimes” and said the message of the event was clear: “Fight against those who come for our children.”

Partnership led to dozens of child sex crime arrests

He described how the partnership with Arizona helped lead to the arrest of a former mixed martial arts fighter from Scottsdale who is accused of abusing eight minors in Colombia.

Stevens said the most important thing parents can do to protect their children is to know what they’re doing online.

“We wouldn’t allow people in our house we don’t know, and we definitely wouldn’t allow people in our children’s room, but we allow children under the cloak of privacy to be able to go into their room and close their door,” Stevens said. “They’re in their room in online communities speaking with people all around the world … and we as parents have no idea who they’re talking to.”

The Department of Homeland Security provides age-specific guidance for parents on how to talk to their children about online safety through its Know2Protect campaign.

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