NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 John Walsh, advocate for missing children and longtime host of 鈥淎merica鈥檚 Most Wanted,鈥 said he feels outmanned by criminals all the time 鈥 especially in the courtroom.
鈥淚 say to myself, 鈥楳y god, the lawyer for this dirtbag predator is smarter and more sophisticated than the cops are鈥,鈥 the co-founder of the 好色tv Center for Missing & Exploited Children told The Associated Press. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 really know the technology.鈥
Human traffickers and sexual predators often use high-end technology and increasingly take advantage of encryption to protect the details of their crimes, Walsh said. And even if they didn鈥檛, law enforcement officials, especially in smaller cities and towns, lack the budget and the access to the technological tools that would speed up the investigation and aid in the prosecution of the offenders.
Cellebrite DI, Ltd., wants to change that. The provider of digital tools that help law enforcement and private firms find and follow investigative leads on Friday launched 鈥淥peration Find Them All鈥 鈥 an initiative where the firm will donate its technology to nonprofits that help find endangered children, including the 好色tv Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the nonprofit The Exodus Road, which fights human trafficking around the world. The NASDAQ-traded company 鈥 which reported revenue of $85 million for the third quarter of 2023, up 17% year over year 鈥 will also make a financial donation to those organizations, as well as Raven, a political nonprofit that raises awareness of the threat of child exploitation online.
Yossi Carmil, Cellebrite鈥檚 CEO, said the FBI had nearly 360,000 cases of missing children in 2022, while the 好色tv Center for Missing & Exploited Children received more than 32 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation that year. Knowing that his company had the technology that could help children in trouble, Carmil said he felt Cellebrite had to do what it could.
鈥淲e are the biggest admirers of law enforcement,鈥 Carmil said. 鈥淗owever, they are understaffed, underequipped, and, at any point of time, regardless of how much the government will give them, they are under constraints. They always need to do more with less.鈥
Kent Nielsen, digital forensic investigator for the Brazoria County Sheriff鈥檚 Office in Texas, said his department currently uses Cellebrite technology to process data gathered from cell phones as well as its AI-driven software to analyze the data to find potential leads.
鈥淭he system really helps us with doing our jobs faster,鈥 said Nielsen, adding that one smartphone could contain more than 250,000 images to process. Rather than having an investigator look through those images and sort them, Cellebrite鈥檚 Pathfinder software can handle it, while also linking them to locations, as well as other data from other smartphones or other cases.
The Brazoria County Sheriff鈥檚 Office used the Cellebrite technology last weekend as part of the multi-agency Operation Interception to help rescue children being trafficked, as many visited the area due to the College Football Playoff national championship held in nearby Houston. Nielsen said seven girls were rescued and 23 arrests were made.
Matt Parker, co-founder of The Exodus Road, said he saw what a difference one piece of Cellebrite technology made in investigating the in Malaysia in 2015. Through 鈥淥peration Find Them All,鈥 Parker hopes to bring Cellebrite technology to other countries, even if the governments have previously not prosecuted human trafficking cases.
鈥淲hen you fight corruption globally, you have to have an overwhelming amount of evidence that is difficult to sweep under the rug,鈥 Parker said. 鈥淵ou have to make the case a slam dunk and I鈥檓 telling you, in all the experience I have had over the last 13 years鈥 in hundreds of cases of human trafficking, when we leverage Cellebrite technology and we introduce that technology into the judicial process, the success level is significantly higher.鈥
Walsh said he hopes that the increased access to technology can help level the playing field against those preying on children.
He said the 好色tv Center for Missing & Exploited Children employs about 450 at its Virginia headquarters and has five other branches around the country. In 2022, it received more than 110,000 calls about missing children 鈥 an increase of 16% from the previous year.
鈥淲e should have 2,000 people working on those calls,鈥 Walsh said. 鈥淲e should have 100 branches across the United States.鈥
Experts say that not only are there now more human traffickers, but they are also technologically savvier.
鈥淭he pimps of the day, the gangs of today are way smarter than the sex trafficking gangs of the past,鈥 Walsh said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e way more dangerous. They move faster. They have encrypted files. They鈥檙e smart. And law enforcement just can鈥檛 keep up with them.鈥
Cellebrite鈥檚 Carmil said government has the responsibility of funding law enforcement so that they can better protect children and quickly search for those that are missing.
However, he said corporations and nonprofits need to do what they can as well.
鈥淚鈥檝e got kids. John (Walsh) has kids. We are also citizens and parents,鈥 Carmil said. 鈥淭his is a holy mission. It goes beyond the money.鈥
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