Queensland Argos detectives give insight into harrowing task of catching sex offenders online
This is a brutal insight into the world of the Queensland police officers tasked with catching the most vile of criminals.
Police & Courts
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Under cover of darkness, a group of covert police officers lay in wait for a Brisbane man who was trying to auction off his two-year-old child for exploitation to the highest bidder.
They got the tip-off 12 hours earlier from a law enforcement agency overseas, and within three hours the Queensland Police Argos team knew who he was and where he lived.
Before the sun rose, the man was arrested and a child rescued from the grips of his abuse, leading to him serving 22 years in jail.
It’s one of the jobs that stands out most in the mind of Argos Covert Online team leader Michelle – not her real name – during her four-year tenure with the world-leading child protection agency.
Michelle is one of a select few officers in a close-knit team whose job it is to catch sex offenders online, and has given an insight into what it’s like to hunt some of the worst criminals in the country.
Officers pose as either an adult offender or an innocent child to extract information from online predators and lure them to arrest.
They trawl through encrypted chat rooms and social media platforms for leads, as well as chat directly with paedophiles, all clueless they are speaking with a police officer.
They adopt different “profiles” best suited to different perpetrators, and usually have a handful of suspects on their “task list” at any given time.
Some suspects offend within hours, while others draw out communication for months.
But, more than anything, it’s a harrowing task.
Officers are exposed to countless images of child abuse, forced to communicate with rapists and paedophiles, and have to stay in character despite it all if there’s any chance of saving a child.
“It is very difficult,” another covert officer, Jacob – not his real name -, said.
He’s been in the team for about 18 months, and said the horrific photos of child abuse were sometimes not even the most confronting part of the job.
“If you see a horrific image of a child or something happening, it’s the praise and communication of all these paedophiles talking about it that’s probably harder than the image itself.”
“Acting like someone saying these horrific things about children can be quite hard, but you’ve always got the knowledge that you’re doing it to potentially save a child or get an offender off the street.”
It’s this immense dedication to child protection that has resulted in 417 children saved, 29 sex offenders arrested and 279 others referred to interstate or international agencies just in the last financial year.
The team, set up in 1996, are responsible for undoing some of the biggest paedophile networks in the world, including the arrest of South Australian child protection worker Shannon McCoole, who was the administrator of a paedophile chat board with 45,000 members. He was sentenced to 35 years jail for abusing children in his care and running the global site.
In 2019, the arrest of the Brisbane man trying to auction off his child was also a “big one”, says Michelle.
“That came through late in the afternoon, so the team worked together to identify where the child was, located the address of the offender, we were ready to go, however they weren’t home.”
They stayed there for hours, waiting for him to appear, but eventually Michelle decided to let her troops go home and rest.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about the little boy.
“Not often do I not sleep with a job, but all I was doing (that night) was thinking ‘please don’t touch him’.”
They reassembled before 5am and went through the door, finding the offender back online trying to get international offenders to fly into Queensland to abuse his infant.
“As soon as we walked in the door … you just see everything from those images.”
The child was rescued and the man charged with 35 offences.
Earlier this year, the team also helped in the arrest of a man who they will allege was about to abduct a child interstate.
They found him online, alerted interstate authorities, and he was promptly arrested allegedly in possession of a rape kit.
In another incident this year, Argos covert officers found a Queensland man – who worked with children – online who they claim had filmed the abuse of a child and shared it.
They swooped in, started talking to him, and figured out he was also a carer who had embedded himself in the community in order to get easy access to kids.
Within 24 hours of engaging with the man, he was arrested and charged.
“It’s all the time though, this is basically every day,” Jacob said.
A crucial part of their operation is Hamish – not his real name – a victim identification specialist who sorts through millions of child abuse images to save the children at the centre of these insidious crimes.
Hamish finds clues in every image, whether it’s items in the room, where it came from or where it was posted, to complete the puzzle of finding the victims and removing them from harm.
“It’s actually quite rewarding,” Hamish said.
“I am constantly trying to be a champion for the children. There’s so many victims, so many offenders, so few investigators … I still have to be the champion for that as the likelihood anyone else is going to be is really low.”
What stands out is the speed in which these officers are closing in on these offenders.
“It’s so important to all of us, we are all working hard on that until it’s done,” Michelle said.
“Whether I’m getting overtime or not, I’m going to stay and do my part to save this child.”
But social media companies and platforms are dismantling their progress, and the rise of AI is becoming a new threat.
Hamish said predators will be able to generate fake child abuse images using just a juvenile’s face.
“It doesn’t matter how hard we run ourselves into the ground … if industry sites don’t pull their weight, we’re just going to drown under the amount of victims,” Hamish said.
“They really do have an obligation to make their platform safe and some really need to lift their game, that’s pretty clear.
“You’re going to see the abuse spiral out of control (with AI).”
But parents and guardians have the most significant part to play in keeping children safe.
“It’s scary. Parents need to have an active role in monitoring their social engagement,” Michelle said.
“You don’t just give your kids a Ferrari and go ‘here you go’, but we seem to do that with cell phones,’ said Hamish.
“This device is putting an offender, anywhere in the world, in your kids bedroom.”
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