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Inside the FBI highlights news, cases, and people from around the Bureau—in audio form. For more information, visit fbi.gov.
[The podcast episode opens with a suspenseful-feeling musical track seemingly featuring piano and synthesizers.]
Narrator: Earlier this year, the FBI undertook an unprecedented, nationwide operation to protect our children and mark April’s National Child Abuse Prevention Month.
Operation Restore Justice was a five-day, sweeping Bureau initiative to identify, track, and arrest child sex predators across the country in coordination with our 55 FBI field offices.
On this episode of our podcast, we’ll discuss the results of this first-of-its-kind operation and its significance in our long-term fight to protect children from the threat of violent crime.
This episode is part of "Your FBI: Crushing Violent Crime," a campaign highlighting the people, partners, and mission of Your FBI and our ongoing work to dismantle violent crime and keep our communities safe.
This is Inside the FBI.
[The Inside the FBI jingle kicks in. It's a bright and driving track.]
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[A more minimal, drone variation of the episode's opening track begins. The track repeats, in part, a few times over.]
Deputy Assistant Director Darren Cox: Operation Restore Justice is an effort to protect our children worldwide, and the FBI leads in many of those investigations with our partnerships—not just in the U.S. but internationally.
Narrator: That’s Darren Cox, the deputy assistant director of the Bureau’s Criminal Investigative Division, which works on the frontlines of our fight against violent crime. According to DAD Cox, the spring 2025 operation …
DAD Cox: …was an effort to really concentrate on the most egregious offenders out there and individuals that we knew if we arrested would make the streets safer—and safer for our children.
And so, we made an effort with state and local, federal and international partners to surge these efforts, and arrested over 204 subjects. But we also saved or located about 100 children in this. And those children deserve an opportunity to have a safe life and not be preyed upon by heinous individuals.
Narrator: According to the U.S. Department of Justice, subjects arrested during Operation Restore Justice allegedly committed various crimes—including producing, distributing, and possessing child sexual abuse material; enticing minors online and transporting them; and trafficking children for sex.
The Department of Justice brought the cases involved in Operation Restore Justice as part of Project Safe Childhood. DOJ started this nationwide initiative in May 2006 to fight child sexual exploitation and abuse.
The project marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute people who use the internet to exploit children. It also focuses on identifying and rescuing victims. You can visit justice.gov/psc to learn more about Project Safe Childhood.
***
DAD Cox: Our agents do this job every day of the week, but there are certain times of the year that we really like to concentrate that effort, make it more focused, and that's what we did during Restore Justice.
Narrator: You can visit fbi.gov/vcac to learn more about how the FBI investigates violent crime against children, and the various initiatives, tools, and partnerships that the Bureau uses in the fight to protect kids from this threat. And if you suspect that a child may be in danger…
DAD Cox: …first and foremost, if you suspect a child is being abused, contact your state and local law enforcement agencies, followed by the FBI at the local field office level.
Narrator: You can visit fbi.gov/fieldoffices to locate your nearest FBI field office and view their contact information.
DAD Cox: And then, online, you can contact the FBI at tips.fbi.gov.
***
[The episode's opening track begins again.]
DAD Cox: Some of our best agents that we have, very, very passionate investigators in the FBI and also with other agencies, they put that passion to making sure that children are safe and that the adult predators that prey on them are taken away and put in their rightful place in prison.
Narrator: Now, let’s hear from one of those agents, in his own words:
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Supervisory Special Agent Scott: I’m Scott, and I’m a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s Crimes Against Children Unit.
[High-energy music begins.]
SSA Scott: I generally investigate crimes involving the production, receipt, distribution, and possession of child pornography, as well as kidnappings and child sex tourism. I had a case where an American man had been going for years and years to the Philippines to seek out the most vulnerable victims in the world. In order to hold him accountable, I had to bring three little girls from the Philippines to the United States to testify. After they were off the stand, I got to watch them become little girls again, that weight lifted off, and see them get some closure to this abusive situation they had been in and become little girls again—joking, laughing—was just a phenomenal moment in my career.
Children are children, around the world. And we owe it to them to protect them from our own citizens going out and harming them.
On any given day, agents are working literally around the clock—whether it’s children who are disappearing, potential kidnapping situations—the idea of waiting a little bit longer and potentially having a child be abused is unacceptable. We do this because we care about it. Your children matter to us.
I’m Scott, and I’m a part of your FBI.
[Music fades out and transitions back into the episode's opening track.]
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Narrator: You can visit fbi.gov/news to discover additional stories, podcasts, videos, and blog posts about the Bureau's efforts to combat violent crime and protect the American people.
This has been another production of Inside the FBI. You can follow us on your favorite podcast player, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
You can also listen to our show via the myFBI Dashboard app. Visit fbi.gov/dashboardapp to learn more.
And you can subscribe to email alerts about new episodes at fbi.gov/podcasts.
On behalf of the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs, thanks for listening.
[The musical track gets louder before fading out.]