SCRANTON -- The attorney general's office led a sting in Lackawanna County this week that caught 16 child predators from all over our area and from New York.
Agents from the attorney general's office, along with police officers and detectives from Lackawanna County and postal inspectors, worked on the sting that lead to the arrests of 16 people. They're all accused of either viewing child pornography or attempting to sexually abuse children.
The investigators say a sting like this would typically take six to eight months, but thanks to some new technology, this one took only two weeks.
From the Lackawanna County District Attorney's office in Scranton, a long list of law enforcement officers announced arrests made all over northeastern Pennsylvania.
The 16 men are from Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne, Susquehanna, Pike, and Carbon Counties and now all are behind bars facing charges of child pornography or criminal attempt to commit child sexual abuse.
They were all arrested within the past two weeks, a pace that investigators say is unprecedented in our area.
“And because we have the capabilities now with our mobile forensic unit, we can take an arrest from what used to be six to eight months down to just a matter of hours now. They can do on-scene forensics,” said Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane.
The mobile unit is similar to ones used in drug investigations. Officers on the road communicated with investigators in a makeshift command center at the Lackawanna County District Attorney's office.
District Attorney Andy Jarbola says this is the first time a sting like this has been done in our area.
“To walk in and watch all the individuals with probably 10 computers all sitting there trying to chat with individuals and everything else, it was really interesting to see it in operation,” Jarbola said.
“We`re in fact talking with another district attorney`s office about doing the exact same thing, because it works. And our mobile street crimes unit shows that, too. We do the same thing with drugs and cleaning up neighborhoods. And why not bring it to our children,” said Kane.
The attorney general said there are two more pending search warrants from this sting. Once those warrants are served, it will bring the total number of arrests up to 18.