Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force Officer on Rising Child Pornography Cases in Columbiana County, Ohio

SALEM, Ohio (WKBN) – Law enforcement agencies in Columbiana County say they have noticed what they call a disturbing trend: an increase in child pornography cases.

“We're already at, you know, the task force itself already has nine indictments,” said an undercover agent with the Valley Human Trafficking Task Force, which WKBN is hiding identify. “We still have four pending cases that we have executed search warrants on.”

In addition to the nine cases charged by the task force this year, several others were handled by local police departments.

“We've quadrupled previous years, you know, almost halfway through this year,” the agent said.

The officer also said many of those arrested had a few hundred pornographic images on their phones or computers, but some had tens of thousands of images in their possession.

The agent believes online platforms such as “Google” could flag uploaded images to state and federal databases. These images, often of young children, are then transmitted to local law enforcement.

“I don’t know why we saw these amounts increase so much this year,” the agent said. “It's worrying. It's disgusting.

The officer said the chances of arresting the suspects are constantly improving, adding that those who have been found guilty have been given harsh sentences of up to 40 or 50 years.

“The judges and prosecutors here take this — in our county — take it very, very seriously,” the agent said. “You're practically facing a life sentence if you're between 30 and 40 years old.”