(StraightNews.org) – Police have arrested five illegal immigrants for kidnapping a 14-year-old girl in Indiana. Carlos Onias Funez and Daniel Ruiz Lopez from Honduras, as well as Mexican citizens Arturo Arteaga Eustaquio, Marlon Pinda Aguilar, and Noe Guzman Hernande, are all suspected of abducting the girl, who was located when police tracked her cell phone.
Events unfolded when the unnamed girl’s father reported seeing her enter a black Dodge Durango with a group of men. The Cass County Sheriff’s Office pinged the girl’s phone and tracked her down a highway near Hannibal, Missouri. Show-Me State Highway Patrol officers then received an alert, and an officer noted the vehicle and initiated a traffic stop. The girl identified herself, and reports indicate that she was not subjected to sexual assault.
Prosecutors charged the men with felony kidnapping, and they are held without bail at Macon County Jail. The teenager reportedly said that the men were giving her a ride to California to meet a person she encountered online, while some reports indicate that she had also met one of her alleged kidnappers on an internet chat group.
Detective Jason Rozzi with the Logansport Police Department said parents need to be extra vigilant and closely monitor their children’s internet activities.
Experts say social media is the primary method used by potential kidnappers and abusers, and FBI statistics show that 70% of young Americans accept friend requests from strangers and engage with them through private chat facilities. Further staggering figures reveal that 82% of stranger sexual abuse crimes against children begin as online engagements.
Furthermore, through social media posts, parents often inadvertently give potential abductors information on their children, which is used to increase trust and engagement between kids and abusers.
Of the 70% who accept requests from strangers, 43% will eventually meet the online friend in person. The FBI also states that kids log on to their favorite sites around ten times a day, and 90% have social media accounts.
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