Donated Surveillance Equipment Used in Florida Underage Sex Sting

Donated surveillance equipment from Supercircuits played a major part in netting more than 40 adults in Florida who allegedly were attempting to have sex with minors who they solicited via the Internet.

Operation Red Cheeks, led by the Osceola County Sheriff’s Department, took place for more than a week in early January. Law enforcement set up fake online profiles and posed as children. The detectives often received pornographic images from the suspects.

The suspects the traveled to a location in the county for what they thought would be a sexual encounter. Instead, they were met and swiftly arrested by police. The donated equioment captured the arrests of the suspects, who included a professional golfer, Army reserve solider, teacher and swim coach.

“We didn’t have the funding for our ICAC (Internet Crimes Against Children) camera system,” said Scott Kofinas, a detective with the sheriff’s department. “The Supercircuits system allowed us to set up bait houses to lure potential sexual predators and capture the video/audio recordings to be used in court proceedings.”

The equipment used by the department was donated from Supercircuits’ SC Gives Back Program. The program is designed to assist any public or non-profit organization.

“Supercircuits has served the government and law enforcement community for more than 20 years,” said Jake Lahmann, vice president of technology for Supercircuits. “We understand that many agencies can’t afford the surveillance equipment required to conduct this type of investigation. This is exactly why we created the SC Gives Back program -- to assist organizations that are dedicated to making our community a safer place.”

It’s great to see a generous donation go to such a worthy cause while helping take so many sexual predators off the street.

Posted by Brent Dirks on Jan 31, 2012