NEBRASKA CITY – A criminal analyst with the Otoe County Sheriff’s Office alerted cell phone users to cybercrimes and offered tips for keeping kids safe from sexting and sextortion at a discussion forum Wednesday.

Deputy Chris Bando said cell phone and computer forensics are a necessary skill for modern law enforcement and a personal quest for him as he thinks of the many victims who have reached out to the sheriff’s office.

He said national polls show that 15 percent of teens have sent or posted nude or partially nude images for a variety of reasons. It can lead to sextortion where a perpetrator demands money or sexual favors under threat of revealing the photos of sexual activity.

Bando: “I have probably at least one to two parents a week come into our office or contact our office because our kid went ahead and posted an image to someone online and now they are being sextorted by, “if you don’t send me more images, I’m going to tell your friends, I’m going to tell your mom, I’m going to tell your dad. Go ahead and give me $20 and I’ll keep this from happening.”

 

 

He said images of child pornography increased by nearly 200 percent since the pandemic and Internet enticement complaints countrywide have grown to a million per week.

He encourages parents to talk to their kids about expectations for online behavior, including not sharing their locations and not “friending” or chatting with anyone they have not met in person.

He said there are safe places for kids on the Internet, such as Sesame Street, National Geographic Kids, Kinzoo messaging and The Kids should see this.

There are also apps parents can download and set up to monitor usage on electronic devices, such as bark, Aura and Norton.

“Sheriff Caudill has made it a priority that this is where we need to be at because he sees that the crimes of the future are not going to be necessarily the regular crimes that we used to have, they are going to be online.”

Caudill said he uses federal forfeiture money that has been seized from drug arrests for equipment used by the internet crimes unit.