Dekalb County Grand Jury Indicts 24 Men In Super Bowl Weekend Underage Sex Sting Operation

A Dekalb County Grand Jury indicted 24 men last week in connection with a massive child sex sting dubbed as "Operation Interception" that took place in February. The men range in age from their early twenties to mid-fifties. Each was indicted on at least one count of utilizing an electronic device to seduce, solicit or entice a child, in separate indictments returned by Grand Jurors last Thursday.

According to a statement the DeKalb County District Attorney's office, members of the group were also charged with human trafficking, criminal attempt to commit aggravated child molestation and obscene internet contact with a child. According to a report by 11alive, one of the defendants, 32-year-old Thomas Cheung was a high-profile tech professional and partner on Twitch, a popular online streaming service that boasts over two million active users every month.

As a Twitch partner, Cheung would have had access to thousands of viewers and could have received subscription payments and ad revenue generated on his channel. His involvement and status on the service made it considerably easier for him to interact with underage subscribers. He was fired from his company, HI-Rez Studios after his arrest earlier this year.

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the indictments came after a five-day sting operation over the course of Super Bowl weekend, which initially resulted in 21 arrests. The men contacted decoys online posing as 14-year-old children engaged in sexually explicit conversations and the distribution of obscene photographs. When the men traveled to Brookhaven to engage in sexual contact with the respondents who they believed to be minors, they were arrested on the spot by the agents.

Following the immediate arrest of the first 21 men, three more were arrested back in May as a part of the ongoing investigation. The men now await arrangement and prosecution by the District Attorney’s Sexual Exploitation and Crimes Against Children Unit, which conducted an extensive pre-indictment investigation.