Police were waiting in a motel room in Gallup, New Mexico, on Tuesday when Fernando Clyde, 52, showed up to meet someone he was waiting for, a 12-year-old girl.
Police body camera video obtained exclusively by CBS News showed Clyde arrested for sending unsolicited sexual messages on Facebook Messenger to someone he thought was a girl, but who was actually an undercover special agent with the department of New Mexico Justice.
“These are individuals who are explicitly using this platform to find and target these children,” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said during a press briefing on Wednesday.
The operation was part of “Operation MetaPhile,” which also resulted in the arrest of Marlon Kellywood, 29, at the same motel on Tuesday on similar charges.
The girl’s profile picture was created using artificial intelligence, officials said, and attracted potential predators.
“They started a sexual conversation,” Torrez told CBS News. “They were sending images, graphic images, genitalia. They were making really horrible statements about their interest in having sex with these children.”
Torrez criticized the way Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and its Mark Zuckerberg, CEO – have handled such security issues.
“I think it’s abundantly clear that Meta and executives like Mr. Zuckerberg have no intention of devoting the kind of resources necessary to ensure the security of these platforms,” Torrez said. “If they could provide security on their own, they would have done it by now.”
The arrests follow an exclusive CBS News report last December. Separate New Mexico civil lawsuit revealed against Meta which alleges that the company “allowed adults to find, message and groom minors, soliciting them to sell photos or participate in pornographic videos.”
In a statement to CBS News, Meta said that “child exploitation is a horrific crime and we have spent years developing technology to combat it and to help law enforcement investigate and prosecute criminals.” behind that. It’s a continuous fight, where determined criminals evolve their tactics across platforms in an attempt to evade protections.
The company says it uses sophisticated technology and experts and reports content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
In 2023, this organization received 36.2 million online reports of suspected child sexual exploitation.
“We could have a child in New Mexico, or anywhere in America, go online, go on one of these platforms,” Torrez said. “And instead of being an undercover agent, he’s actually a kid who gets lured by one of these monsters.”
The New Mexico Department of Justice has released a guide with advice for parents and children on how to protect themselves from such online threats.
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