On Thursday, local sheriff's departments announced the arrests of nearly two dozen alleged sex offenders in the Piedmont.
"Operation Ghost Wire" was conducted over two weeks in October by the Invictus Task Force. The nonprofit organization partners with law enforcement to combat the sexual exploitation and trafficking of children. This collaboration between sheriff’s departments in Alamance, Randolph, Davidson and Forsyth counties led to the arrest of 23 individuals for allegedly attempting to engage in sexual contact with minors or for possessing child sex abuse material.
At the joint press conference, Invictus CEO and Founder Ray Dawson said in 2019, his office received 5,000 cyber tips — images and videos depicting sexual abuse of a child — and that number is on the rise.
"And last month in October, we had over 6,800 of those cyber tips in the state of North Carolina alone in one month," says Dawson. "We are not going to enforce our way out of this. It’s going to take us to collaborate together with parents and people that are in a position of trust over our children because we’re going to have to educate our way out of this. This is a parenting problem."
To raise awareness, the Task Force is hosting prevention programs in Graham for parents and teenagers in January.
