You might think swiping through apps is merely a time-sucker or a bit of harmless mucking about before lights-out, but also in the Asia-Pacific region for some predators it’s a whole game-plan — and ironically, it’s also the snare that brings them down.
In Melbourne, when 14-year-old girl added a bloke claiming he was 32 on Snapchat, it wasn’t just flirtation: it was grooming. But thanks to that very platform, a photo, some CCTV and eagle-eyed detectives, the predator was busted. In the case of 40-year-old Jesse Mahoney (who posed as “Alec”), the scenario played out with chilling efficiency. He befriended a teen on Snapchat, lied about his age, told her she was “hot” and “pretty”, and after repeated secret meet-ups in secluded parks he managed to coerce sexual contact. She reported him. He gave away his identity by posting a selfie in a brown shirt at the Collingwood Children’s Farm. Detectives traced the shirt, the scene, the ticket purchased on his debit card — and locked him in.
The upshot? Social media and apps are the modern bogeymen for tens of thousands of vulnerable Aussie kids — yet they also provide the breadcrumb trail for the law. The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) in 2023-24 received 58,503 reports of online child sexual exploitation. In one recent case, a Northern Territory man was charged after the ACCCE and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) swooped on messaging-app data linked overseas.
Here’s the cultural hook: out in the suburbs or the bush, the Aussies often reckon they’re pretty safe — “no worries mate” and all that. Yet predators are exploiting their laid-back trust, especially when kids log on unsupervised with their phones in the back seat. The guardian’s approach (“just turn it off when you finish”) won’t cut it anymore. For example, more than 63 % of 13- to 15-year-olds used Snapchat in 2024 — putting them square in the predator’s playing-field.
In another recent Victorian case, an 11-year-old girl added a stranger on Snapchat via the Quick Add feature as part of a “Snap score” game-thing. That stranger turned out to be a 23-year-old man who groomed then abused her. The parent-friendly outward image of an app hides a dark undercarriage where quick adders, ephemeral snaps and hidden chats open a door.
But — and here’s the flip side — the very tech that predators misuse is helping police nab them. The “Alec/Mahoney” case showed that even when a predator conceals identity, messaging apps leave data: handles, images, background clues, locations, metadata. In simpler Aussie terms: the predator thought he was playing a game, but the cops were already two moves ahead. Add in CCTV, debit-card slips, and digital forensics and the crook’s story crumbled.
In Queensland, the specialist unit Task Force Argos used a sting — posing as a child on social media — to arrest a 35-year-old man arranging to meet someone under 16. Devices were seized and the man charged. The tools: apps, undercover accounts, digital footprints. All part of the tech-enabled warfare against online predators.
To be clear: we’re not having a tech-paranoid freak-out. This isn’t about banning phones or scaring kids away from the internet; it’s about awareness. Schools, parents, carers, kids themselves need to know what “friending strangers” in an app really means in 2025 Australia. The law is tightening too: for instance, an industry code of conduct for dating apps was rolled out after findings that 75% of Australian users had experienced some form of sexual violence through the platforms.
So next time your kid asks for phone privileges, or you shrug “ah they’ll be right” as they log on in the lounge room — remember: predators do not wear visible horns, but they do leave digital tracks. And thank goodness we’ve got detectives skilled enough to read them. In Aussie slang: it’s not just about “a yarn” on the couch — it’s about serious business. Because whether you’re in Sydney, Perth or the Outback, the message is simple: be alert, stay safe, and when it comes to kids online, don’t muck about.