Key to ICE HSI’s fight against child exploitation is its Cyber Crimes Center (C3), Child Exploitation Investigations Unit (CEIU). The CEIU directs ICE HSI in its mission to investigate producers and distributors of child pornography, as well as individuals who travel abroad for the purpose of engaging in sex with minors. The CEIU employs the latest technology to collect evidence and track the activities of individuals and organized groups who sexually exploit children through the use of websites, chat rooms, newsgroups and peer-to-peer trading. The CEIU provides assistance to ICE HSI field offices, coordinates major investigations, and conducts undercover operations throughout the world to identify and apprehend violators.
ICE HSI has also launched the Victim Identification Program to combine technological and investigative capabilities and resources to recover child victims of sexual exploitation. After the discovery of material that depicts an unidentified minor or minors being sexually abused, ICE HSI analyzes and enhances the material in order to identify clues that may lead to the identity of the victim, suspect, or geographic location. Another crucial program to help victims is “Project VIC,” launched in August 2012, by law enforcement agencies, technology firms, and non-governmental organizations to create efficiencies, adopt innovative technological solutions, and promote a victim-focused methodology to reduce backlogs in forensic analysis of images of sexual exploitation of children. Today, Project VIC has thousands of law enforcement users in the United States and 32 countries.
U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS)
USPIS investigates sexual exploitation of children when it involves the U.S. mail. USPIS works closely on investigations with DOJ, and from 2010-2015, Postal Inspectors have arrested more than 500 offenders. Furthermore, a Postal Inspection Service analyst works out of a NCMEC facility, handling, among other duties, all evidence submissions by law enforcement agencies to NCMEC’s CVIP; receiving and coordinating thousands of requests by law enforcement for a review of images for known and identified victims; and handling CyberTipline reports made available to law enforcement that indicate the U.S. mail may have been used to facilitate any part of a child’s sexual exploitation. From 2010-2015, the USPIS analyst reviewed more than 104,000 CyberTipline reports, 801 of which were distributed to Postal Inspectors for further action.
U.S. Marshals Service (USMS)
USMS plays a unique role in efforts to combat child exploitation though its fugitive apprehension program, Sex Offender Investigations Branch (SOIB) investigations, and missing children recovery operations. Between May 1, 2010 and May 1, 2015, USMS received approximately ten thousand requests for assistance from law enforcement in fugitive cases involving the sexual exploitation of a child. USMS has apprehended approximately 9,000 of those fugitives. In addition, between May 1, 2010 and May 1, 2015, USMS investigators opened 16,320 investigations of convicted sex offenders and arrested 2,671 individuals for violation of their federal sex offender registration obligations. USMS also works closely with NCMEC to recover missing and exploited children, and between May 1, 2010 and May 1, 2015, recovered 427 children.