SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
ABC4 KTVX / CW30 KUCW [Salt Lake City UT]
June 2, 2026
By Bayan Wang
Child sexual exploitation cases have been on the rise in the last several years, according to the most recent FBI data.
According to the FBI, child sexual exploitation includes production and distribution of child pornography, sex trafficking, sextortion, child enticement and grooming.
“I would say there’s been a steady increase year over year in all of those crimes,” FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dustin Grant said in an interview with ABC4 News Tuesday.
“There was a huge trend in sextortion of minors, specifically here in Utah, but across the country as well, but we saw a huge increase in those over the last four or five years, but bundled together, that increase has been steady over the last 12 years that I’ve been doing this here in Utah,” he said.
In fiscal year 2022, the FBI opened 4,881 child exploitation cases and made 2,682 arrests. By FY 2025, annual cases grew by more than 44% to 7,058, while arrests rose to 3,097—an increase of 415 arrests.
According to Grant, the increase can be attributed to the rapid growth of social media apps and online platforms.
“At this point, it’s largely because of the internet and access to applications, social applications, the bigger volume and increase that we’ve seen on the internet, specifically kids registering and creating accounts on all of these applications, has obviously made it much easier for child predators to have access to kids and also facilitate their criminal activity,” Grant said.
The continued prevalence of artificial intelligence adds a new challenge in the fight against child sexual exploitation.How to make ABC4 your preferred news source on Googlethat trend is going to be increasingly more over the next few years just because we’re trying to get a grasp of what that looks like,” Grant said. “We’re already seeing cases right now with computer-generated child pornography or child sexual abuse material. Also, it’s an easy way for people to anonymize their behavior and also make contact with children on the internet as well.”
In the interim, the FBI consistently partners with various law enforcement agencies to educate parents about protecting their children.
“An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure,” Grant said. “So, at the end of the day, for us to be effective, I think it’s better for us to be on the front end of this as opposed to reacting to the crime after someone’s been victimized.”