Here's some positive news for ya:

This operation took place in five Southern California counties, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Ventura, and Santa Barbara. And I know I said this was a positive story, but while the arrest count here looks promising, I have some frightful trends to share with you.

The arrests followed an increase in online child sexual abuse reports, which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"When we first started in 2004, we started LAPD's ICAC because we received 458 tips that year," Capt. Jeff Bratcher told the Los Angeles Times. "In 2019 that number rose to 8,500. In 2020, 2021, both years, were over 24,000. This year so far, we're over 25,000, so we should end the year with over 36,000 cybertips. And each one of these tips was one more potential child victim."

So it looks like the Covid pandemic really accelerated the abuse of human beings. And this trend has been seen globally, as we showed you earlier this week.

So while we are happy with this sting operation, which saw 141 arrests, we hope that as Covid comes to an end we see these trends die down a bit.

More on the operation:

Law enforcement officials followed tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Crimestoppers.com, and they conducted compliance checks on those required to register as a sex offender who had a history of crime on the internet.

Among those detained, 110 were arrested on suspicion of possessing, distributing, or manufacturing child sexual abuse material, according to the news release. Eighteen people were arrested on charges of parole or probation violations, six were arrested on charges of sexual abuse of a minor, two of statutory rape, and two of pimping. Three people were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct.

Keep up the good work, LAPD.

And y'all keep praying for the victims of abuse worldwide.

P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇