The Pasco Sheriff’s Office said it arrested a man for human trafficking after learning that he was trying to get other men online to train a child in his custody to carry out sexual fantasies.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children passed on information about the suspect to the Pasco Sheriff’s Office. Detectives said the suspect was having conversations online with other individuals about a child, who was elementary school age, in his custody.
The suspect told others online about his fantasies with the child and that he was offering her to them to train. The suspect had sent photos of the child in a bathing suit.
Detectives intervened before anything happened to the child. Sheriff Chis Nocco said the other individuals were in New Jersey, Alabama, Illinois and the United Kingdom.
The suspect, identified as Jean Cebollero-Arias, 46, was arrested on charges of human trafficking involving a minor in his custody.
“The death penalty is never good enough for individuals who are arrested for this,” Sheriff Chris Nocco said. “I know it’s a life charge. But there’s worse things that these people deserve because what these children have to go through is horrendous.”
Nocco said human trafficking investigations generally pull staff from two areas: cybercrimes and missing persons. They call it the missing and exploited persons unit.
To extend their resources, the Pasco Sheriff’s Office is starting a volunteer unit called Operation Phoenix. This group will work with detectives in going through open source information. Volunteer at https://joinpso.com/.
“You get a lot of young girls that run away,” Nocco said. “They go online. They go into a social media site. They believe they’ve fallen in love with somebody who’s their age. And what they find out is that person is not their age. They find out that person is now using them for sex, selling them.”
Another growing problem is sextortion. After sending nude photos, victims are forced into doing something they don’t want to do if they want to prevent their photo from being sent to all their friends on social media.
Nocco encouraged families to have conversations with children about these online dangers.
He also cautioned about getting caught up in the rumors spread on neighborhood sites about people getting swept up by human trafficking.
Nocco encouraged residents to seek the truth and ask those sharing such information if they have notified the sheriff’s office. He said people have told him they heard someone was kidnapped from a particular shopping location. If that were the case, Nocco said the community would see the largest police presence they’ve ever seen.
“Let’s get to the truth,” Nocco said. “Let’s get to the reality because there’s already enough fear and anxiety out there, but really, if we can just use our power to go save people together, that makes us more efficient.”