“Our mission is to take as many pedophiles off the street and away from children as possible,” the 23-year-old Alex Rosen, founder of Predator Poachers, said.
Over the past three years, Predator Poachers, a Texas-based group founded in 2020 by now-23-year-old Alex Rosen aimed at preventing child sexual abuse, has identified approximately 500 online child predators, resulting in nearly 300 arrests in 43 states.
Many cases are still pending and there have been convictions in more than half of the country—including a decades-long prison sentence for a former Virginia firefighter announced Sept. 20 by the Department of Justice.
A 2022 sting operation conducted by the group of independent journalists targeting Virginia-based Christopher Scott Jones, led law enforcement to uncover a trail of his underage victims.
Using a decoy pretending to be an 11-year-old girl, the group communicated with Mr. Jones for several months via social media platforms, text messaging, and phone and video calls before the discussion turned criminal, and the 40-year-old firefighter suggested meeting in person for nefarious reasons.
“It took months for him to get sexual … he’s very careful about the targets he’s choosing,” Mr. Rosen told The Epoch Times. “Our decoy Ashley did a tremendous job to convince him,” that she was real.
Instead of a young child, Mr. Jones was met by 6-foot, 4-inch tall, 300-pound Mr. Rosen and his crew of photographers ready to document the encounter.
After initially trying to avoid a conversation, the suspect eventually allowed Mr. Rosen and a cameraman into his truck, where he spent more than two hours denying the evidence before relenting and admitting why he was there.
“He was lawyer-speaking to me the whole time,” Mr. Rosen said. “It wasn’t until the end that he admitted that he wanted to have sex with the 11-year-old.”
Ultimately, Mr. Jones was arrested and charged with attempted rape of a child, upon which authorities discovered evidence of additional crimes.
After turning the information over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Norfolk, Virginia, three minors the suspect had previously sexually assaulted were identified, leading to further charges.
