Out of hundreds of suspects, 42 arrested in Inland Empire child sex exploitation bust
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A person wanted for child sexual assault, two corporate vice presidents and a child psychologist were among 42 people arrested in a sweeping child sexual exploitation bust in the Inland Empire, authorities announced Monday.
The effort, dubbed Operation Volcano, identified more than 500 suspected distributors of child sexual abuse images as part of an effort to dismantle regional networks exploiting minors, according to the Riverside County district attorney’s office.
Investigators used the operation to test a form of triage in which they identified and prioritized high-risk offenders, said Liam Doyle, supervising investigator with the district attorney’s office and leader of the county’s Child Exploitation Team.
Those offenders included people who had previously committed sexual offenses, those under criminal justice supervision, people working with children, and individuals in positions of public trust.
Violent online groups have allegedly abused hundreds of mostly female minor victims worldwide, according to Homeland Security Investigations.
One of the first arrests they made was that of Feliciano Chavarria, 62, in Lake Elisinore. He was wanted on a $2-million arrest warrant for child sexual abuse out of L.A. County.
Chavarria “had a digital mountain of child sex abuse images and files and videos,” Doyle said.
The methodology proved successful, he added, and authorities are now in the process of explaining it to other task forces that investigate online crimes against children.
The operation also netted three registered sex offenders: Mark Tyler, 66, of Perris; Dustin Jenks, 56, of Palm Springs; and Anthony Ramirez, 39, of Nuevo.
Additional arrests included a retired law enforcement employee, a California prison information technology employee, a local government planning director, a Southern California hospital chief technology officer, a notary public, a United States Postal Service employee and a naturopathic doctor, prosecutors said.
The operation began in March 2025 as part of a partnership between the Riverside County Child Exploitation Team and nonprofit organization Our Rescue, which focuses on combating child exploitation. Our Rescue provided resources to help pay for software to search suspects’ computers and cellphones, according to Doyle.
The 42 people arrested come from 19 Riverside County cities, with the highest concentrations in Menifee, where six people were arrested; Riverside, where five people were arrested; and Moreno Valley, also with five arrests. Although all of the people arrested are accused of distributing child sexual abuse material, there were no indications that any of them were working together, Doyle said.
Those arrested shared images of child sex abuse with undercover investigators, he said. They range from 21 to 81 years old, with the majority of suspects being middle-aged men.
Authorities found the suspects by identifying IP addresses distributing child sexual abuse material on peer-to-peer networks. A peer-to-peer network is a system in which computers connect directly to share data without a central server, which can enable users to exchange illegal material in a decentralized way that’s harder to monitor.
The investigation is among the largest of its kind in Doyle’s seven years with the Riverside County Child Exploitation Team, he said. He estimated it involved roughly 30 people, including a district attorney’s computer forensics examiner who processed more than 200 terabytes of data and eight members of the California Highway Patrol in Sacramento. Investigators sometimes served two to three residential search warrants a day to manage the caseload, he said.
The team is still actively investigating those who were identified as suspects but not arrested, he said. “What we have seen over the last year was almost no one was a one-time offender, that most people would pop on again,” he said. “So there’s a little bit of cat and mouse that goes on here.”
Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies rescued 37 teenagers across Southern California and in nearby states including Arizona and Nevada.
Both San Bernardino and Riverside counties have dedicated task forces targeting the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
Riverside County sheriff’s officials have said about 5,000 to 6,000 children run away or go missing each year in the county. Although a majority return home shortly after leaving, a portion fall victim to sex trafficking.
This year, an operation led by the Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Marshals Service rescued dozens of missing minors who had been sexually assaulted or trafficked.
Operation Volcano, the effort announced Monday, was carried out with support from Homeland Security Investigations, the California Highway Patrol and the Internet Crimes Against Children task forces in Los Angeles and San Diego.
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