BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – A Pennsylvania man is wanted on charges of soliciting an 11-year-old Baton Rouge girl online.
Harry Delgado, from Allentown, Pennsylvania, faces charges after investigators said he communicated with the child. The East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Louisiana Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force were part of the investigation.
National data shows reports to the Cyber Tipline increased 300 percent in recent years. One of the task force’s recent reports shows 203,467 investigations led to more than 12,600 arrests nationwide.
Louisiana is on track to have a record year in 2026 for cybercrime tips.
“This year, we’re already on track to hit probably 100,000 tips,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said. “So they are going up very dramatically, very fast. And I think that is because social media has provided all kinds of ways for predators to get access to our kids.”
David Ferris, the commander of the task force in Louisiana, said the number of cases is dramatically increasing.
In the Delgado case and a recent case involving a Zachary teen, parents were monitoring their children’s electronic communication.
Earlier this month, Michael Jay, a truck driver from Kentucky, was accused of luring away a teen he met online in Zachary. The pair was found at a Love’s Truckstop in Oklahoma. Jay was arrested and faces charges in Louisiana.
The father in the Zachary case said his daughter still managed to access the internet despite his efforts.
“My advice to any parent is if you love your kids, get rid of that internet,” he said. “There’s nothing good about it… I took her phone. I took her game console. I took her tablet. And she still managed to get a hold of one. And she still managed to get taken.”
Murrill said parents need to understand the risks.
“You think that your child is safe if the child’s at home in their bedroom or in your house or even sitting next to you at the kitchen table, but they’re not,” she said. “Not if they’re on the internet.”
Murrill said her office has started investigating all runaway cases as human trafficking cases, so resources can be brought in faster.
“Nothing, I think, is more important than protecting our children from sex predators,” Murrill said. “And the increase in access that is provided by social media has created this kind of superhighway to our kids.”
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