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American Morning

FBI Chief Discusses Kiddie Porn Sting

Aired March 19, 2002 - 08:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Dozens of people are in custody this morning, as you've been hearing Carol talk about, for trading child pornography on the Internet. The Justice Department announced yesterday that a sting operation dubbed Operation Candy Man busted a global kiddie porn king.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRUCE GEBHART, FBI ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Our investigation uncovered an estimated 7,000 members, including some 2,400 outside our borders using e-mail and the Candy Man Web site to post, download and share pornographic images of children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Among those taken into custody were member of law enforcement, clergy, educators, people whose job it is to help and protect children. The Feds expect another 50 arrests by week's end.

Mike Heimbach is chief of the FBI's Crime Against Children Unit and he joins us now from Washington this morning. Good morning.

MIKE HEIMBACH, FBI CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN UNIT: Good morning.

WHITFIELD: All right, well, how did this Operation Candy Man work?

HEIMBACH: Well it worked where our agents from our FBI Houston office infiltrated the Candy Man Web site based on tips from citizens. We went in on an undercover role. We had free access to join the Candy Man E-site, which subsequently led us to three additional sites, also.

WHITFIELD: And there are about 1,000 child pornography Web sites out there, reportedly. What was it about this one, do you think, that appealed to so many at one time?

HEIMBACH: Well, it was easy access. Anyone could join it. There was free exchange and sharing of pornographic pictures of children. As our assistant director said, there was over 7,000 individuals in this particular Web site.

WHITFIELD: And of these individuals, what's so alarming is exactly who among those that you have netted, a nurse. You've got educators, law enforcement. Obviously these people did not know that they were being watched.

HEIMBACH: That's correct. The individuals that we would, we call them in positions of trust, received immediate attention from the FBI. We felt that they were putting children in harm's way and most immediate risk. So those indictments and those arrests took place immediately once we identified each individual's occupation and made the arrests from there.

WHITFIELD: And at this Web site location, in addition to the photographs you mentioned that were at this site, were there any promises of those people who were visiting who thought they might be meeting children?

HEIMBACH: No, we didn't find anyone that were meeting children. But they did link us to other sites which are under investigation. As you know, we have subpoenaed and through court orders received all the logs from the Internet service providers, which allows us to put all 7,000 individuals into our database and will receive attention by law enforcement at some time in the near future.

WHITFIELD: This had to have taken so many investigators aback when they were to learn that so many of the people who were netted were folks that worked closely with children or traditionally would be protecting children. How surprised and how much of a setback was that for the investigators working on this?

HEIMBACH: It's quite alarming. I actually spoke to our agent that infiltrated this Web site and first he was astonished how easy it was to access it and then very astonished to see that there were 7,000 members of the Web site. And then, of course, it's quite troubling, because many of our agents are parents, also, to see individuals in positions of trust and find out their occupations.

WHITFIELD: All right, and more arrests expected by week's end.

Mike Heimbach, thanks very much, with the FBI, for joining us this morning from Washington.

HEIMBACH: You're welcome. Thank you.

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