By Brian Trompeter
Detectives with the Fairfax County Police Department’s Major Crimes Bureau arrested 10 men on felony child-solicitation charges following a three-day sting operation earlier in December, police said Dec. 28.
During the sting, dubbed “Operation ADC [Adult Detention Center] Express 2,” the suspects allegedly used Internet platforms to initiate sexually related conversations with people they believed were juveniles, police said.
In reality, those contacts were undercover detectives pretending on various online forums to be 13- and 14-year-old boys and girls.
“Our detectives are really careful during the operation to represent themselves as children,” said Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis at a Dec. 28 media briefing. “There’s no ‘gotcha game’ associated with this at all.”
The suspects, who range in age from 22 to 44, are being held without bond at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center, authorities said. The arrestees hail from all walks of life and both from the local area and as far away as the Mideast. The suspects work in fields as diverse as technology, construction, yoga instruction and journalism, said Deputy Chief of Investigations Eli Corey.
The following arrestees have been charged with attempted indecent liberties and computer solicitation of a child under 15 years old: Michael Flannery, 33, of Winchester; Casto Ian Unson III, 35, of Vienna; Ravi Vongavolu, 24, of Herndon; Rabiul Islam, 44, of Arlington, who also faces a charge of attempted production of child-sexual-abuse material; Osman Aslan, 30, of Vienna; Mohamed Elnefili, 38, of Qatar (who had been staying in Springfield at the time of his arrest); Roy Hayes, 22 of Herndon; Imran Ahmad, 42, of Ashburn; and Bassem Karam, 36, of Herndon.
Authorities also charged Estuardo Orozco, 27, of Falls Church with computer solicitation of a child under age 15.
Police at the press conference introduced Delaware, a 2-year-old black English Labrador that is one of the department’s “electronic service dogs.” Police use these highly trained canines during such operations to search for electronic devices on which such offenders typically store their child-sexual-abuse material, Davis said. These offenders also often hide their devices in their homes, cars and yards, he said.
County police last year conducted a similar operation, and will do more such stings in 2024, officials said.
County police urge parents to monitor their children’s online activities closely and use security settings to prevent them from using inappropriate sites or platforms. They also should encourage their children to report any person engaging in inappropriate conversations or trying to coerce them into providing sexually explicit images of themselves, police said.
