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NEWS | March 28, 2025

Joint Child Exploitation Operation Leads to Arrests of 10, including 4 Undocumented Foreign Nationals

By Denise Caskey, NCIS Public Affairs

"Large-scale, proactive child exploitation chat operations such as these directly support Department of Defense priorities to protect Navy and Marine Corps communities from the threat of harm posed by child predators."


Norfolk, Va. – The NCIS Norfolk Field Office, in conjunction with Homeland Security Investigations and the Hampton Police Department, conducted a proactive child exploitation operation resulting in the arrest of 10 subjects, including four undocumented foreign nationals, March 20-22 in the Hampton Roads area.

Over the course of the three-day operation, subjects communicated with an undercover agent posing as a young underage female on various social media platforms with the intention of soliciting sexual acts from the purported minor. Authorities arrested the subjects upon their arrival at a predetermined location.

Of the 10 arrested, four were foreign nationals found to be in the country illegally, and one was a foreign national residing legally in the U.S. Their countries of origin were Mexico, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Bangladesh. Following their processing through the Virginia legal system, they will be turned over to Homeland Security Investigations.

The operation spanned multiple jurisdictions and was supported by several federal and local law enforcement partners including the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Virginia, the Hampton Commonwealth Attorney’s Office, the Region Legal Service Office Mid-Atlantic Office of Special Trial Council, the Isle of White County Sherriff’s Office, the Newport News Police Department, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the Virginia State Police, the Hampton Sherriff’s Office, and the Franklin Police Department.