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The task force is comprised of seven agencies across five counties in Northeast Florida.
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — In 2023, INTERCEPT Task Force received 663 cyber tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which initiated 583 investigations covering the counties of Nassau, Duval, Clay, Putnam and St. Johns.
From those investigations: 85 search warrants were served, 224 electronic devices were examined and 6.3 million images and videos reviewed by INTERCEPT, which stands for Interagency Child Exploitation and Persons Trafficking Task Force.
According to a press conference on Wednesday, INTERCEPT’s investigations led to 31 arrests, 16 indictments, 53 arrest assists to support proactive regional operations and eight other arrests for incidents like sexual battery and video voyeurism. Since INTERCEPT launched, their work has led to 21 convictions and 18 offenders have been sentenced to more than 148 combined years in prison with one life sentence.
The INTERCEPT Task Force is made up of seven agencies across five counties in Northeast Florida that are not restricted by jurisdictional boundaries that could prevent law enforcement from finding the people who prey on some of the most vulnerable citizens in our area.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg from our early cases,” said Clay County Undersheriff Ron Lendvay, who is also the chairman of the executive board of INTERCEPT. “These numbers will continue to grow as these investigations and prosecutions progress towards completion.”
Lendvay was joined by sheriffs from five Northeast Florida counties, a cooperation that he said makes the work of his task force possible.
“It’s having local, state and federal level folks working together, being cross-sworn, so everybody can work together within all those jurisdictions, so we can truly take a regional approach and not worry about a jurisdictional boundary,” said Lendvay.
The task force specifically mentioned the arrest and conviction of former JSO officer Alejandro Carmona-Fonseca, who tried to entice a 16 year old boy in Clay County. Carmona-Fonseca was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison.
“When we have someone doing something like that we can’t wait to catch them,” said Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters, “we can’t wait to get rid of them and get them out of our agency, so I welcome it, I’m glad it happened and hopefully it’ll never happen again.”
Putnam County Sheriff Gator DeLoach said the teamwork approach of different agencies from different counties makes a huge difference.
“That’s really the main benefit we see is bringing these federal and state and local partners is the ability to operate across those jurisdictional boundaries,” DeLoach said. “Without that, we wouldn’t be able to experience the successes we have.”
Their work will continue. On April 17, Homeland Security Investigations will launch its Know2Protect campaign, which will educate and empower children, parents and policymakers to fight against child online sexual abuse. Undersheriff Lendvay expects that more counties and agencies in Northeast Florida will likely join their task force later this year.
Resources regarding victims of human trafficking and ways to report it can be found through Operation Lightshine’s website.
You can also report child sexual exploitation directly to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children through their cyber tip line, which can be found here.
