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Cleveland FBI warns of rise in sexual predators targeting children, adults in online sextortion

3/2/2015

CLEVELAND - The Cleveland FBI has found that sexual predators are getting more creative in deceiving people online and that no one is exempt from being targeted.

The most common targets are children.

“We're seeing a trend in which you've got a lot of younger kids - pre-teens, 10, 11, 12 years old - who are online, talking to people they don't know,” said Special Agent Kelly Liberti. “And we teach our kids at a very, very young age about stranger danger, but that also applies to online if you don't know who these folks are.”

Liberti said more Northeast Ohioans are coming to the FBI and explaining that they or their children were fooled online by a predator.