Catherine Rusoff
Police were waiting in a motel room in Gallup, New Mexico, on Tuesday when 52-year-old Fernando Clyde showed up to meet someone he expected to be a 12-year-old girl.
Police body camera video obtained exclusively by CBS News showed Clyde being arrested on charges of sending unsolicited sexual messages on Facebook Messenger to who he thought was a girl but was actually an undercover special agent with the New York Department of Justice. Mexico.
“These are individuals who are explicitly using this platform to find and target these children,” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The sting was part of “Operation MetaPhile,” which also resulted in the arrest of 29-year-old Marlon Kellywood on Tuesday at the same motel on similar charges.
The girl’s profile photo was created with artificial intelligence, authorities said, and attracted potential predators.
“They started a sexual conversation,” Torrez told CBS News. “They were sending images, graphic images, of genitals. They were making really horrible statements about their interest in sex with these children.”
Torrez criticized how Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and its CEOMark Zuckerberg – dealt with these security issues.
“I think it’s pretty clear that Meta and executives like Mr. Zuckerberg have no intention of dedicating the kinds of resources necessary to ensure these platforms are secure,” Torrez said. “If they could make this safe on their own, they would have done it already.”
The arrests followed an exclusive report by CBS News last December revealed separate New Mexico civil case against Meta, which alleges that the company “allowed adults to meet, message, and groom minors by asking them to sell photos or participate in pornographic videos.”
In a statement to CBS News, Meta said “Child exploitation is a horrific crime and we have spent years building technology to combat it and to support law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting the criminals behind it. This is an ongoing fight, where determined criminals evolve their tactics across platforms to try to evade protections.”
The company says it uses sophisticated technology and experts and reports content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
In 2023, that organization received 36.2 million reports of suspected online child sexual exploitation.
“We could have a child in New Mexico, or anywhere in America, go online, go on one of these platforms,” Torrez said. “And instead of it being a secret agent, it’s actually a child who is attracted to one of these monsters.”
The New Mexico Department of Justice published a guide with tips for parents and children on how to protect themselves against these online threats.
