The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction

web site operator. Europol sent these leads to the United States and approximately 30 otheraffected countries. From the 10,000 e-mails associated with the United States, approximately1,400 unique U.S. e-mail addresses were identified. From this group of 1,400, approximately 800suspects in the United States were identified. By this time, the evidence was in most cases toostale to support an application for a search warrant of the targets’ computers for evidence of theiroffense; therefore, law enforcement had to dedicate substantial resources to further investigatethe targets in hopes of uncovering additional and current information.In early 2007, DOJ/CEOS, the USPIS, the FBI, and ICE, began developing an investigativestrategy through target prioritization based on a number of criteria that would support strongcriminal cases against the most viable and potentially dangerous targets. This nationallycoordinated initiative using proactive undercover investigative techniques was named OperationJoint Hammer. Starting in May 2007, U.S. law enforcement began obtaining and executingsearch warrants on these targets. To date, more than 200 searches have been conductedthroughout the United States by agents from the three federal agencies. Due to a lack ofcentralized recordkeeping by law enforcement agencies and the involvement of large numbers ofdifferent law enforcement agencies at the state level, along with many ICAC Task Forces, thedata we have does not represent a full accounting of the results of the operation, simply abaseline.Several of the executed searches from Operation Joint Hammer, highlighted below, are worthyof mentioning. This operation identified major offenders, including a co-conspirator with theItalian “photographer” and web site operator in the global distribution scheme, teachers,producers of child pornography, contact offenders, and, in one case, a target who was involvedwith an international adoption association:(1) Houston, Texas—A man was identified as a co-conspirator of the Italian producerand web site distributor. Evidence demonstrated that this individual purchased G-string lingerie specially sized for minor females between 7 and 13 years old andmailed it to the Italian to be used in his photos and videos. Evidence furtherdemonstrated that this individual provided financial support to the Italian andconsultation on how to run his online distribution web site. Two weeks after his arrestand detention, the suspect committed suicide in prison.(2) Phoenix, Arizona—A man identified as a customer of the child pornography web sitewas a Grade 5 teacher at a charter school in the Phoenix area. After the search of hishome and discovery of child pornography in his possession, investigators uncoveredallegations of unwanted sexual contact with female students at the school.(3) Los Angeles, California—A man initially identified as a customer of the childpornography web site was determined to have traveled to Ukraine and theNetherlands, where he paid to take explicit photographs of some of the same minorvictims that the Italian producer had already exploited.(4) Los Angeles, California—During the search of this man’s residence, law enforcementseized more than 1.5 terabytes of electronic storage media containing a very largequantity of child pornography. In addition, printed images of child pornography werelocated in several areas of the home, as well as stories detailing an adult male’s sexualencounters with children. The man, who was involved with an international adoptionA-5