ATLANTA — FBI agents in Atlanta and across the country are looking for additional possible victims of a man agents said sexually exploited children online for more than 10 years.
The suspect, Patrick Tran, is in custody. Investigators said Tran victimized hundreds of children, nationwide.
According to the FBI, Tran, based in Houston, Texas, has been victimizing children online for so long, many of his earlier victims are young adults now. Agents are trying to reach all of the underage and adult females he may have victimized, to let them know they don’t have to be afraid to come forward.
The grand jury indictment, returned last week in federal court in Houston, is initially charging Tran with sexually exploiting four children.
But investigators believe Tran victimized hundreds more.
FBI Special Agent Ryan Shultz in the Houston field office told 11Alive that, so far, he has found more than 650 webcam videos Tran recorded with underage girls going back more than 10 years, in addition to thousands of additional videos with adult women.
“There are victims all over the country, if not all over the world,” Shultz said. “Some of these minors that may have been abused 10 years ago may be, certainly, adults now.”
Prosecutors in the U.S Attorney’s Office in Houston said the investigation began in October, 2020.
“A mother of one of the alleged victims allegedly found her 10-year-old daughter standing naked in front of her iPad,” according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Wednesday. “According to testimony, chat communications appeared to show Tran was coercing her daughter into engaging in sexually-explicit conduct.”
Prosecutors said investigators obtained search warrants and discovered a total of about 4,000 video files in Tran's possession showing women and underage girls engaging in sexually-explicit online conduct with him.
FBI offices in Atlanta and across the country have gone on social media, "seeking the public's help identifying underage child exploitation victims," in the words of a tweet from the FBI Houston office on Tuesday that FBI Atlanta retweeted. "Patrick Tran aka Reggie Smith allegedly enticed hundreds of underage girls online for more than ten years."
Shultz said Tran admitted to him that he targeted females online of all ages, including children, often on Snapchat with the username “Travis_Story20,” and also on the Omegle app.
Shultz said Tran often identified himself online as "Reggie Smith" while committing the crimes.
“He had explained to me that it started as kind of a game, he’d had difficulty establishing and maintaining relationships with women,” Shultz said. “The more he did it, and the more he took advantage of these women that he could get on the hook, the more he felt like he got good at it. And it just became something that he did for fun.”
Shultz said Tran insisted, “It wasn’t, for him, about abusing children or finding children to take advantage of, it was about anybody that he could victimize. So whether the individual was 30 years old or 8 years old, it didn’t matter to him. And he wasn’t going to give anybody a break for being underage. If he could take advantage of them, he took advantage of that opportunity.”
Shultz said it's likely that many of Tran’s alleged victims might never recognize him if they were to see him face-to-face, because he used video software to alter and disguise his appearance online.
Shultz said people wanting to come forward can go to the FBI’s website to reach victims services.
11Alive reached Tran’s attorney, who declined to comment.
The case against Tran is scheduled to go to trial in federal court in May.