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March 24th, 2023category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer Drug related offenses accounted for almost one-third of all cases reported in fiscal year 2022, the United States Sentencing Commission (called “the Commission” hereon) said in its annual report. That makes drug offenses the single largest category of...
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January 27th, 2023category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer Anyone can, potentially, help in the battle against human trafficking. How? One possible place to start is by learning and researching on spotting some typical signs and indicators of this tragic crime. So, if you happen to come...
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October 7th, 2022category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic struck, all manner of criminal activity also increasingly shifted to the virtual world. That included human traffickers, who began to use online channels more and more to conduct their activities. They used digital...
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May 26th, 2022category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer Wednesday, May 25, was International Missing Children's Day. It's a day that's dedicated to encouraging parents, guardians, caregivers, and others concerned with the well-being of children to make child safety a priority. The commemoration of this day, per...
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February 9th, 2022category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer On Friday, Feb. 4, the Justice Department announced that Aaron Crawford of Maryland had been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, followed by 20 years of supervised release. Why? For engaging in what Attorney General Merrick B....
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February 1st, 2022category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer There's no doubt that combating child sex abuse material (CSAM) is a serious challenge that law enforcement officers, parents, caregivers, and various others involved in or concerned about child safety and protection face. Sample this: Of the 21.7+...
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January 4th, 2022category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer At Biometrica, child safety and protection has always been at the heart of what we do. We ended 2021 with a look-back special at various issues surrounding this all-important public safety subject that took centerstage through last year....
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December 16th, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer On Wednesday, Dec. 15 the U.S. and Australia signed a landmark agreement that will facilitate access to electronic data for investigations of serious crime, including terrorism and child sexual abuse. The agreement is authorized by the Clarifying Lawful...
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November 30th, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer U.S. prosecutors recently announced that they have filed sex trafficking charges against Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, the Philippine national who founded a church called Kingdom of Jesus Christ, as well as two U.S.-based administrators of that church. The superseding...
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November 19th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy Aara Ramesh Last month, we wrote about some gaps in the child welfare system that can lead to children in foster care being abused. Unfortunately, the reality is that it’s not just those children who can fall prey to abuse. Almost...
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October 28th, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy Aara Ramesh On Wednesday, Oct. 27, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a Virginia man, 26-year-old Zackary Ellis Sanders, had been convicted by a federal jury for producing, receiving, and possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The DOJ alleges that...
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October 20th, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer Out of the total federal caseload, child sex abuse material (CSAM) production cases account for only a small percentage. Even so, the expansion of digital and mobile technology has led to a 422% spike in the number of...
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October 18th, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy Deepti Govind One in 10 people aged 18–25 and one in 30 people aged 13–17 experience homelessness each year. To put it another way, in a classroom of 30 students, at least one will experience homelessness this year, which means they...
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October 6th, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer At the end of September, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released its 20th annual “Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor” report, which analyzed the state of child labor in 131 countries and territories between January and...
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October 1st, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy Aara Ramesh A year ago, last October, USA TODAY reported in a bombshell investigation that a foster father in Florida had been arrested in 2019 and had pleaded guilty to charges for rape, molestation, and producing and consuming child sexual abuse...
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September 24th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy a Biometrica staffer There's been a large increase in the number of sextortion complaints made to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) warned at the start of this month. As of July 31, 2021,...
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September 23rd, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy Aara Ramesh The exploitation of children is a real and present problem, one that has only worsened — like many others — as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Children are roped into forced labor; they are trafficked for sex; they...
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August 5th, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy Deepti Govind Just three weeks ago, the Department of Justice said a 53-year old Maryland resident, Jeffrey John White, was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison for possessing thousands of files of child pornography. When the case was...
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July 13th, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer An undercover investigation in middle Tennessee ended in the arrests of 18 men accused of seeking illicit sex from minors, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday, July 12. The operation began on July 8 and...
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June 28th, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer In a move likely may have a far-reaching ripple effect, on Friday, June 25, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Facebook can be held responsible for its users engaging in illegal sex trafficking activities on the site, regardless...
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June 25th, 2021category: News Reports
By Aara Ramesh A landmark law intended to radically alter the landscape of sex trafficking online has had a limited impact in the three years since it was enacted, according to a recent report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)....
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June 2nd, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer On Tuesday, June 1, Pope Francis made a long-awaited change to the criminal section of the Code of Canon Law, or Catholic Church law: The changes explicitly criminalize the sexual abuse of adults by priests who misuse their...
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June 2nd, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy Jan Edwards May 25 was International Mission Children’s Day. Globally, more than one million children are reported missing every year. ICMEC considers any child under the age of 18 whose whereabouts are unknown to be “missing.” This includes children who have...
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June 1st, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer On Monday, May 31, the Center for The Defense of Children’s Rights, published a report in which it said it had uncovered a “disturbing pattern” of child sexual abuse at as many as 18 schools and childcare centers...
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May 14th, 2021category: News ReportsBy Aara Ramesh It might be tempting to think that child sexual abuse is a phenomenon of the digital age, a purely modern trend. While it is true that the epidemic has worsened with the advent of the internet, it has been...
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April 19th, 2021category: News ReportsBy Anand Vasu Last week, San Jose-based videoconferencing platform Zoom made a big announcement, which it labeled, “On Academic Freedom for our Higher Education Users.” The crux of the statement was that in the case of Zoom meetings and webinars hosted by...
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April 15th, 2021category: News Reports
By Anand Vasu Cornell D.A. Johnson, of Chicago, was sentenced to 45 years in prison on April 13 for producing child pornography involving multiple minors. Senior U.S. District Judge Michael M. Mihm called Johnson the “ringmaster” of the operation and said that...
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April 12th, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy Deepti Govind If you thought child marriage was a problem that only developing countries faced, think again. It is an equally real, and worrisome, problem in the U.S. too. Read this: Nearly 300,000 minors, under age 18, were legally married in...
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April 7th, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy Kathy Nicholl They meet in an unusual and rather unexpected setting — at a religious gathering. She takes her time and recounts to the judge in her child protection case what her father has done to her. The judge asks if...
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March 31st, 2021category: Feature StoriesHere is a staggering estimate: 75% of victims of child sexual abuse material are reportedly under the age of 12, 63% under the age of eight. Children are more likely to be abused by someone they have a relationship with, either virtual...
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March 11th, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer Michael David Miller of southwestern Missouri was sentenced on March 9 to 20 years without parole, for using a social media app to contact 12- and 13-year-old girls in Canada and induce them to engage in sexually explicit...
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March 4th, 2021category: News Reports
By Anand Vasu The Arizona House passed Bill HB 2889 that will ensure convicted child offenders would not have the option of probation, parole or work release. This means that an individual serving a 10-20 year sentence, would not have the chance...
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January 27th, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer January 27, 2021 Groping a child through clothing does not constitute sexual assault, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court ruled last week, drawing outrage across the country. On Wednesday, India’s top court suspended that ruling and...
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November 24th, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer A man from Massachusetts was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. Oliver Smith, 45, was charged by criminal complaint and detained pending a detention hearing scheduled for...
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October 1st, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer Ten men from around the US have been sentenced for taking part in a child pornography enterprise and conspiracy, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. Of the ten, three are based in New York, two...
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September 24th, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer A middle school teacher from Fontana, California, was arrested on child pornography charges by special agents with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Josue Gamaliel Vidal Quintanilla, 28, who teaches mathematics at Shandin Hills...
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September 18th, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer Alexander Nathan Barter, a resident of Joaquin, Texas, was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison on Thursday for child exploitation violations after he solicited the murder, necrophilia, and cannibalism of a minor on the dark web. Undercover...
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September 16th, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer A resident of Kansas has been indicted by a federal grand jury on federal child pornography charges, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. The three-count indictment charged Jeffrey Pierce, who lives in Topeka, with producing...
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September 16th, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer A man was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison for repeatedly sexually assaulting a child, producing images of the sexual abuse, and possessing hundreds of images and videos of the sexual assaults. Andres Rafael Viola, an Argentine...