Police hunt paedophiles in GTA IV
Thursday, 03 Jul 2008 08:59
The police have been cruising the world of online games in search of sex offenders
The police in the United States have taken the fight against paedophiles into the gaming arena, it was revealed this week.
Apparently, the cops are infiltrating multiplayer games, such as Grand Theft Auto IV, in an attempt to catch various miscreants.
"Child predators are migrating from traditional methods to alternate media," Thomas Kish, detective lieutenant in the Michigan State police force, told USA Today. "They are going to places where children are."
According to the newspaper, the police are playing everything from GTA IV to chess and chequers online in order to make arrests.
In December last year, Michigan prosecutors sentenced a man to ten years in prison for using World of Warcraft to lure a 12-year-old girl into having sex with him.
It was later discovered that he had used a variety of other online games to pursue children.
Lieutenant Jessica Farnsworth of the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children task force claimed the division has siezed a number of Xbox consoles for investigative purposes.
Microsoft has been co-operating with the police in terms of advising them on how to extract certain information.