The recent arrival of golden Labrador Thoreau makes Rhode Island the second state in the nation to have a police dog trained to sniff out hard drives, thumb drives and other technological gadgets that could contain child pornography.

SCITUATE, R.I. — From a bank of computers at state police headquarters, detectives tap into a network of child pornography traffickers.

On a recent Wednesday, illicit files are being traded in Coventry, Westerly and Woonsocket. Four years ago, the traffic was centralized in Providence, Woonsocket and West Warwick, the police say. Now, they watch as predators pop up all over the state.

“It's everywhere,” says Kevin P. Harris, a Coventry detective assigned to the state's Internet Crimes Against Children task force.

In the past few years, the number of networks used by people dealing in child pornography has more than doubled. Sophisticated ones require users to be vetted and produce credentials. They need a sponsor. Network members support and encourage one another as they swap files of children being abused and share tips on how to elude the police, authorities say.

“They know the ins and outs of these networks,” state police Cpl. Eric M. Yelle says.

The World Wide Web has opened a vast frontier for offenders to easily trade and collect virtual libraries of child pornography. Images — often produced overseas and featuring children from Eastern Europe and Russia — can be created at home with webcams and even cellphones.

Often offenders work to build collections that can be traded, authorities say. A dozen images of a 5-year-old girl might be traded for one of an infant rape.

The offenders It is against the law in Rhode Island to produce, possess or trade sexually explicit images of children under age 18

Most child pornography offenders are white men with an average age of 41, U.S. Sentencing Commission statistics show. The majority graduated from high school and hold jobs.

A 2008 study by Michael L. Bourke, now chief psychologist for the U.S. Marshals Service, concluded that Internet offenders may be undetected child molesters. Eighty-five percent of the people in the study — all who had been arrested for possessing child pornography — admitted to sexually exploiting a child.

In Rhode Island over the past few years, arrests for child pornography crimes have cut across all races, income levels and ages, police say. They have included youth coaches, a bus monitor, a medical student working at Kent Hospital and a social studies teacher. All held positions of trust with proximity to children.

The police focus on people who are trading and viewing the most perverse images, those involving very young children, according to Yelle. “We're looking for the worst of the worst.”

Focus on victims Detectives are all too familiar with the most disturbing images and videos available in what authorities estimate is a $20-billion industry. Some have names such as the “Vicky” series in which a West Coast father videotaped himself raping his daughter over many years. Others feature infants and toddlers being raped, bound and tortured.

“It isn't as innocent as people think,” Yelle says. “They are watching video of a crime scene. They are watching a kid being raped.”

In recent years, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations agents — three who are on the Internet task force in Rhode Island — have shifted to a more victim-centered approach in investigating child pornography and child exploitation crimes, according to Bruce M. Foucart, special agent in charge of the agency's New England office.

They carefully examine each image, scouring for items in the background that could help locate the child. A bedspread, piece of clothing, or particular fabric could provide crucial clues about their whereabouts.

“We are continually honing in,” Foucart said. “The child or the victim is the priority.”

Warwick arrest That approach led to the arrest of Sean Keener, of Warwick, on child pornography charges in November after an investigation that spanned to two states and Russia.

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Source: Rhode Island State Police Note: 2014 numbers as of June 25. Source: Rhode Island State Police Note: 2014 numbers as of June 25. Homeland Security agents in Boston arrested a Massachusetts man with large quantities of child pornography. One image was a sleeping girl next to a sign that read “RHODEIslandGuy401@gmail :)” and provided the date the photo was taken. Others showed the same girl nude in the shower. In another, a man's finger could be seen pulling back the child's underwear to expose her genitalia, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The agents searched the Internet and discovered the email address was linked to a Russian website that stores and shares photos. There, they found a folder linked to the email account that contained six images of the then 7-year-old girl.

Agents subpoenaed Google for information about the email address, which, in turn, led them to a woman's phone number in Warwick. A search of Facebook showed that the woman had a young daughter and was associated with Keener. Her daughter was the same child depicted in the images on the Russian website.

Working with Warwick police, agents executed a search warrant at Keener's father's house. They found 600 photos and videos featuring child pornography, including prepubescent boys and girls engaged in sexual activities with adults.

Pinpointing the location of the child to Warwick enabled agents to identify and arrest Keener within 24 hours, says Eric Caron, the Homeland Security regional agent in Rhode Island who has since retired.

Keener, 27, was charged with producing, possessing and distributing child pornography. He is due to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in September after pleading guilty to the crimes. He faces 15 to 70 years in prison.

Golden Labrador The state police, through the task force, are also taking a new approach. The recent arrival of golden Labrador Thoreau makes Rhode Island the second state in the nation to have a police dog trained to sniff out hard drives, thumb drives and other technological gadgets that could contain child pornography.

Thoreau received 22 weeks of training in how to detect devices in exchange for food at the Connecticut State Police Training Academy.

Given to the state police by the Connecticut State Police, the dog assisted in its first search warrant in June pinpointing a thumb drive containing child pornography hidden four layers deep in a tin box inside a metal cabinet. That discovery led the police to secure an arrest warrant, Yelle says.

“If it has a memory card, he'll sniff it out,” Detective Adam Houston, Thoreau's handler, says.

At times, child pornographers hide devices in ceiling tiles or even radios.

Houston demonstrated the dog's skills last month. Houston walked the dog through a room in which he had hidden devices. A second pass went more slowly, with Houston coaxing the dog. “Show me. Show me.”

Thoreau furiously sniffed shelves, desks, cabinets. The dog located a hard drive inside a Ziploc bag in the upper shelf of a desk. A flash drive and thumb drive were also found, with the dog zeroing in on their location down to the exact drawer. In exchange, Thoreau got food.

“This is how he eats every day,” says Houston, who cares for the dog around the clock.

‘Sextorting' children Law enforcement is also seeing an uptick in cases in which predators convince children to send explicit videos and photos by posing as their peers, Foucart, of Homeland Security, says. Once the images are out they blackmail or “sextort” the child to send more or risk being exposed to their parents and peers.

“These folks are out there trolling the Internet, trolling the streets, taking photos at the beach,” Caron says.

Such was the case, the police allege, in the 2011 arrest of a then-assistant wrestling coach at Moses Brown School. The police say Joseph Simone, then 21, posed as a teenage girl on a social network, initiating an online relationship with a teenage boy. He persuaded the boy to send nude pictures of himself. He then threatened to release the photos on Facebook if the boy balked at sending more such photos, the police say.

Simone, of North Providence, has pleaded not guilty to possessing child pornography, indecent solicitation of a minor and extortion charges.

State lawmakers this session passed bills that would make it a felony to send minors explicit images and videos electronically. Governor Chafee signed the bills into law Friday.

Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin had pushed for their passage for three years, asserting that adults posing as kids often groom children by sending illicit images under the guise of “I'll show you mine, if you show me yours.”

“They don't realize that once it's posted you can't get it back,” Foucart says.

Homeland Security, working with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, is preparing to launch a national campaign aimed at educating children — and their parents — about how to avoid being victimized online. Project iGuardian will employ superhero-style figures to deliver the message “think before you click,” according to the agency. It will also provide parents with resources.

Strength in numbers “We can't arrest our way out of this,” says Foucart, whose agency charged 2,099 people with offenses related to online exploitation of children in the past fiscal year.

Law enforcement is also employing the philosophy of using strength in numbers to combat predators, Caron says “We're not doing this alone.”

In addition, Homeland Security and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Internet Crimes Against Children task force works with 10 police departments across the state: Coventry, Warwick, Woonsocket, Jamestown, Middletown, Pawtucket, North Kingstown, Portsmouth, Bristol and South Kingstown are all part of its ranks as well as five members of the state police and three civilians. It is led by state police Sgt. Staci K. Shepherd, with Yelle acting as second in command.

The team readily shares tips about child pornography traffic with a network of 60 similar task forces nationwide. The U.S. Department of Justice created the ICAC in 1998 following the explosion of child pornography and predators online.

The challenge is keeping up with ever-changing technology. Frequent training is required.

“It's getting harder to fight it, but we're getting better at fighting it,” Yelle says.

The children are what motivates Yelle and others on the task force to continue the work, despite the toll looking at the deeply disturbing images takes. He thinks of his own children as he reflects on the vacant look in the victims' eyes. The children are being damaged for life.

“You see that and it doesn't leave you,” Yelle said. “You are compelled to do something.”