Fairfax County, VA – Detectives from our Child Exploitation Unit (CEXU) have concluded a months-long operation targeting online predators that led to the arrest of 16 suspects from across North America seeking criminal encounters with minors.

During this operation, CEXU focused on identifying offenders who used online platforms to initiate inappropriate conversations with individuals they believed to be underage. The suspects arrived or prearranged to arrive in Fairfax County with plans to commit sexual acts with minors, only to be met by detectives from both CEXU and the Violent Crimes Suppression Unit. The 16 men, ranging in age from 20 to 65, now face a total of 82 felony charges.

The following suspects were arrested and charged during this operation:

• Joel Dario Santamaria Jara, 28, of Sterling, was arrested and charged with three counts of Solicitation of a Minor and Attempted Indecent Liberties with Children.
• Michael Forsht, 59, of Springfield, was arrested and charged with four counts of Solicitation of a Minor and Production of Child Pornography.
• Alexander William Coughlin, 30, of Bristow,was arrested and charged with Solicitation of a Minor.
• Tranh Duy Nguyen, 20, of Woodbridge, was arrested and charged with Solicitation of a Minor.
• Refujio Deleon, 62, of Roanoke, was arrested and charged with Solicitation of a Minor and Attempted Indecent Liberties with Children.
• Nery Elisio Gonzalez Ordonez, 36, of Springfield, was arrested and charged with Solicitation of a Minor.
• Watcharapong Sapsittikul, 33, of Oakton,was arrested and charged with Solicitation of a Minor.
• Allan Blake Willoughby, 65, of Dinwiddie, was arrested for four counts of Solicitation of a Minor and Production of Child Pornography.
• Dennis Joseph Furey Jr, 50, of Sterling, was arrested and charged with four counts of Solicitation of a Minor.
• Simon Roberts, 40, of Annadale,was arrested and charged with four counts of Solicitation of a Minor and Production of Child Pornography.
• Tommy Varesh, 52, of Canada, was arrested and charged with twelve counts of Solicitation of a Minor, Production of Child Pornography, and Contributing to Delinquency.
• Bacem Megdiche, 26, of Maryland, wasarrested and charged with three counts of Solicitation of a Minor, two counts of Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor and Distribution of Certain Drugs to Persons Under 18 Prohibited.
• Benjamin Scott Heyman, 48, of Herndon,was arrested and charged with twelve counts of Possession/Distribution of Child Pornography (Second or Subsequent), Solicitation of a Minor, Attempted Indecent Liberties with a Minor, and Prostitution/Solicitation of a Minor.
• Nelson Ivan Perez-Villegas, 30, of Maryland,was arrested and charged withSolicitation of a Minor and Attempted Indecent Liberties with a Minor.
• Mario Alexander Bonilla, 49,of Manassas,was arrested and charged withfive counts ofSolicitation of a Minor, two counts of Production of Child Pornography, Eluding, and Resisting Arrest.
• Saboor Anwari, 23, of Fredericksburg,was arrested by Virginia State Police forthree counts of Solicitation of a Minor, three counts of Carnal Knowledge of Child Between Thirteen and Fifteen Years, and Indecent Liberties with a Minor. Anwari is awaiting extradition to Fairfax County.

Parents are urged to closely monitor their children’s online activities and use available security settings to prevent the use of inappropriate sites or platforms. Children should be encouraged to report any person engaging in inappropriate conversations or trying to coerce them into providing sexually explicit images of themselves. Additional internet safety information provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children can be found HERE. There are many applications predators use to solicit victims. Parents are encouraged to know what applications their children are using and have open dialog of the dangers they may pose.

Detectives are asking anyone with information regarding these incidents or others with a similar nexus to call our Major Crimes Bureau at 703-246-7800, option 6. Tips can also be submitted anonymously through Crime Solvers by phone – 1-866-411-TIPS (866-411-8477), and by web – Click HERE. Download the ‘P3 Tips’ App “Fairfax Co Crime Solvers.”  Anonymous tipsters are eligible for cash rewards. Please leave contact information if you wish for a detective to follow up with you. 

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The premonition grows. Read here.

“Mastering Machine Learning: From Basics to Advanced” by Govindakumar Madhavan was published in April by Springer Nature. It’s $169 as an ebook, or $219 as a hardback. [Springer, archive]

Retraction Watch heard from a reader who was cited in the book — but his cited papers didn’t … exist. A lot of citations in the book don’t exist. [Retraction Watch]

Retraction Watch asked Madhavan to comment on whether he’d written his book on AI with an AI. Madhavan answered this yes-or-no question as follows:

reliably determining whether content (or an issue) is AI generated remains a challenge, as even human-written text can appear ‘AI-like.’ This challenge is only expected to grow, as LLMs continue to advance in fluency and sophistication.

That’s great, thanks.

Madhavan is the founder and CEO of SeaportAI, which offers services dealing with the risks of AI fraud. [SITE]

The book warns to take care with ChatGPT:

the technology raises important ethical questions about the use and misuse of AI-generated text.

Retraction Watch commenter Peter Vamplew says:

I wouldn’t expect an answer from Springer any time soon. I reported a similar case of a book chapter which contained hallucinated references, including one which it attributed to me which doesn’t match anything I’ve actually written. It’s been 4 months now and I’m still waiting for their investigation to reach a conclusion.

Springer publishes 14,000 books a year with 9,000 employees. Nobody at Springer even looks at the books. Springer concerns itself with the important part — charging $200 for a pile of chatbot spew.

• Video version

An internal Microsoft memo has leaked. It was written by Julia Liuson, president of the Developer Division at Microsoft and GitHub. The memo tells managers to evaluate employees based on how much they use internal AI tools like the various Copilots: [Business Insider]

AI is now a fundamental part of how we work. Just like collaboration, data-driven thinking, and effective communication, using AI is no longer optional — it’s core to every role and every level.

Liuson told managers that AI “should be part of your holistic reflections on an individual’s performance and impact.”

Let’s be clear: this is a confession of abject failure.

Microsoft’s AI tools don’t work. Microsoft AI doesn’t make you more effective. Microsoft AI won’t do the job better.

If it did, Microsoft staff would be using it already. The competition inside Microsoft is vicious. If AI would get them ahead of the other guy, they’d use it.

We already know that when AI saves someone time at work, it’s because they can fob work off onto someone else. Total work doesn’t go down, and total productivity doesn’t go up.

But Microsoft is desperate to sell AI to anyone it can, because the CEO, Satya Nadella, has a bee in his bonnet. Nadella has decreed: everyone will use AI.

Even though it doesn’t work.

We should expect some enterprising Microsoft coder to come up with an automated AI agent system that racks up chatbot metrics for them — while they get on with their actual job.

• Video version

🕹️ Decker is, in my opinion, the best way to get started at any skill level.

Think of it like the MS Paint of game development. Easy to pick up and always fun to use.

Enjoy it while it lasts. Read here.