430: Chris Hansen Speaks Out Robert Pattinson Movie, New Sting Operations & A Predator’s Playbook

- Do you see how there's luck? - I just want to use trailer for prime time. - You see how this looks? - You see how this looks? - Again, you see how this looks?

- You see how this looks, right? - You were worried as to whether or not.

- You guys are filming me, I feel like I'm being finally seen.

- This was us then, there was a setup.

“- Well, I think the violation was going to take place.”

If we weren't here, and it was a 15-year-old arrest and specialist, this [bleep] it is suspicious AF as well. - Yes, it is. - You see how this looks, right?

- Hey, true current besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of "Serial Asleep." - Hello, hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all-new episode of "Serial Asleep" with me, your host, Annie Elise.

- I hope you are all having a fantastic start here week so far that you are, you know, whatever you're doing, whether you're on your way to work, maybe you're at work, maybe you're cleaning, maybe you're working out, who knows?

But whatever you're doing, I hope you are ready for today's episode

because this is one that I personally have been looking

forward to so much. I didn't even realize that this episode was going to be on my bucket list and that this interview was on my bucket list until I realized it, which kind of now that I say that out loud

makes absolutely no sense.

“But you may have been seeing the trailer”

for the upcoming movie "Primetime" going viral right now. It stars Robert Pattinson, he's playing Chris Hanson, who I'm sure all of you are familiar with from back in the day, "Dateline NBC," how to catch a predator.

He now has his show takedown on True Blue, which he is a network he co-founded. And he's just an icon in the space, right? His name is synonymous with catching predators. And so as I said, you probably have seen this trailer

going viral because Robert Pattinson,

channels, Chris's voice, in my opinion,

incredibly well. The movie feels like a thriller, but it really takes you through the early days of how to catch a predator. What would go into these stains?

What was it like for Chris Hanson? And here's the best part about today's episode, guys, we don't need to wonder. We don't need to see the movie to understand what went into these stains,

how the stains are still operating today. Because today I am joined by the one, the only, the, child advocate of the century, Chris Hanson. And he is sharing directly with us,

not only things about the movie, but also what goes into stains, what he's working on now, how parents who are listening, can really be educated on the dangers of roblox

of how predators have evolved over the years from chat rooms on AOL now to video games and to text messaging and Instagram and all of the apps. And we're going to talk all things predators today. So please join me in welcoming Chris Hanson.

Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to serialistly. Chris Hanson. Well, thank you. I am so happy to be here.

Well, I'm happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. And you're so much that I want to talk to you. Absolutely. Okay, so I want to talk about the new movie

because obviously Robert Pattinson is going to be starring as you in an upcoming movie. Called Primetime. How does that feel? Well, I tell you what.

I've been so busy being the real Chris Hanson. I haven't had much time to check out the drama ties version, but I'm going to see it soon. And once I do, we'll talk about it. Okay, great.

I have a lot of questions about this. Sure. So we'll get there. I would love to start back. Let's rewind a little bit to the date line day.

Sure.

“Let's see how to catch a predator days and what goes on inside a sting?”

Well, inside a sting, there's a lot going on. In the very beginning, you know, in 2004, when we started this, we merely partnered with an online watchdog group called Preferred Adjusted. So it was their chatters. That group at the time would find these guys and post their identities on their website.

I figured if we could combine their ability to be decoys with our ability to wire a house. It could be compelling. So we set up a house in Long Island, Beth Paige. And I wasn't sure what was going to happen. But in two and a half days, 17 guys showed up, including a New York City Firefighter.

So once we did that, you know, this has evolved as you can imagine with technology, with the number of apps and platforms upon which adults can approach children. The whole world has changed in those 22 years. And we have had to change with it. But behind the scenes, a lot goes on.

We have a location. We work a little different with each of our law enforcement partners today. We work everywhere from San Francisco, where we were just two weeks before this interview. We were in Maryland last week.

than ever before trying to exploit children. How often would you say if you could even put a ratio to it,

“that its men versus women predators that you catch?”

Well, I think it's about half and half. Wow. Well, no, I shouldn't say that. I misunderstood you question. We have only caught male predators.

Okay.

We have never had a female predator surface in one of our investigations.

Okay. I thought you were talking about men looking for boys versus men looking for girls. That's about half and half. But in terms of female predators, we don't see them.

And I think that's, at least partially because the shrink's tell us that the female predators seek to know their victims. In other words, you're more likely to see a teacher student scenario. They don't like the anonymity. Where a male predator loves the animate anonymity of it.

You know, likes to figure it out as he goes along. So going back to the early days with one of the things. After the long island staying, once you have the show, how to catch a predator, what would the process look like?

Can you walk us through that? The process would be to find the location at home. In the jurisdiction of our law enforcement partner. Because it became pretty apparent early on that to not partner with law enforcement until after the fact,

which is what we did in the first two,

wasn't socially responsible. These guys had to face justice.

“So that's why we always part of our law enforcement.”

And that relationship is even gotten closer as the years are grown by. But typically, we find a house. Our camera people take people wire the house. Hidden cameras, remote. And then the decoys go online,

posing as children. When they're approached by a predator, potential predator. If they go over the threshold of a sexual solicitation, a crime occurs online,

they're given the address. And if they show up, I can front them and then they're arrested by authorities.

So what role does law enforcement play within that partnership with you?

Law enforcement is the investigative arm. Law enforcement has to take this case, and the evidence of this case, to a prosecutor's office, so that they face justice. So now we have law enforcement decoys.

In other words, everybody involved in that part of the investigation. The chatters, everybody else. They're a member of law enforcement. The onsite decoys are young or youngish-looking members of law enforcement. Sometimes cadets or, you know,

sheriff's deputies who work in the county trail. They look young, but they can pull off the role. The reason we do that is because then there is no chain of custody issues with the evidence. The chats belong to law enforcement. I have access to it, but they belong to law enforcement.

And it makes for much more seamless prosecution. So they're embedded really in all aspects of the state. Yeah, and we're embedded with them too. Right. Because it has to be that way because, you know, in the early investigations,

there were some guys who were prosecuted after the fact. But we did have guys who just walked away. And those guys didn't face consequences. Now today, our successful prosecution rate is above 99%. Wow, that's incredible.

And it's because of the way it's set up. Let me ask you this in the early days before you did partner with law enforcement more formally on this.

“Did you forget scared it any of these things of like, what if the first one?”

I mean, we didn't know. Yeah. We could do a little bit of background, but we didn't have their full names. We didn't have a database to run them. Right.

You know, guy Mike from, you know, wherever shows up to me to 13 year old girl, after a sexually charged conversation, I don't know who this guy is. I had security with me, Ronnie Knight, my security guy. Many, many years was with me. And so I felt personally protected.

I thought the crew would be protected, but it was pretty edgy. Now we've got a full team of law enforcement involved. So it's about as safe as it can possibly be. Well, as you know, I mean, it goes without saying how to catch a predator has become a cultural phenomenon. Everybody knows about it or has heard about it or has seen some sort of role play of it in some regard.

And I've noticed, and as I'm sure you have that a lot of people, there is like, very small group, I should say, on social media, who now try to do their own vigilante justice and do these sting operations themselves. And they're not qualified. They're not working with law enforcement.

Have you seen any of that? Yeah, I've seen some. So look, I think anytime a bad guy is exposed, and is stopped before they can hurt a child or stop before they hurt another child, obviously that's a good thing.

I worry in some cases that the people they find don't get properly prosecuted, because they don't go through the same protocols we do. Now there's some out there who do. And there are some who work with law enforcement.

And I think there is definitely a place in our world for citizen journalists.

“I mean, look what YouTube has done for people.”

How many crimes have been solved because of this crowdfunding of information, if you will. So there's a place for it. It just worries me that maybe a guy gets caught and doesn't get properly prosecuted. It worries me that sometimes the motives may not be the same as the motives we have working with authorities.

But I'm so busy focusing on what we do. I'm really focused much on what other people do. One so speaking of that, you've been doing this now for decades. Starting with how to catch a predator, now evolving and to take down. Obviously things have changed over the years.

I mentioned that earlier. Predators are getting more internet savvy smarter. Wiser. There's now so many more methods out there of how they can prey on these victims. And exploit them.

“What was that shift like or that evolution like going from?”

How to catch a predator to now take down and how are those different? Well, think about this. In the beginning, we merely had decoys in chat rooms on AOL and Yahoo. Right. I was at the AOL chat room day.

Right. I was writing ASL in the chat room. Exactly. So that's where we were. Maybe that antiquated platform called MySpace.

Yeah. There too. Today, you know, there's been an explosion in the number of platforms, including gaming platforms. Where adults can approach children. And so, we are seeing cases more horrifying, more dangerous, more graphic today than ever before.

And we just finished, not too long ago.

Our first documentary on Roblox called Dangerous Games.

Yes. And, you know, this is a playground for predators. And parents often don't realize it because they look at a game where the characters, appear to be innocent, you know, Lego characters. And they don't realize the danger there.

And then these conversations are taken from Roblox to Discord, which is, you know, about as dirty up as you can get. Yeah. And parents don't understand this. And then it goes to the cell phone.

And we had in the Roblox investigation in one county in Florida. We had a case where a young man was arrested for exploding children all over the country. Like, a dozen cases. And we had a victim who is ten years old who's exploited on Roblox by a predator in the UK. So if this is happening in Marion County, Florida, in your ocala, what's happening in the rest of the world.

And what we found is there is a lot happening. Back to school season is here, which means that we are getting back into routines. And in my house, that includes making sure that the kids are getting the nutrients that they need to actually like help whine down at night and just like, you know, do all of the right things. And that's one of the reasons we love high-end.

Their kids multi-vitamin has zero sugar, no gummy additives, and it's packed with essential vitamins and minerals.

And the kids actually like taking them, which as a parent, that's half the battle, right? They also have kids bedtime essentials, which has been great for our nighttime routine. It's not a sleep-aid. It's a non-habit-forming, chewable, with ingredients like Elfini and B6, GABA, Camemil, Magnesium, and Calcium, all the help kids relax before bed and wake up refreshed.

No melatonin and no sugar. You can now find hi-a in-person at Target Store's Nationwide or directly from their website with a special deal that we have worked out just for you. We'll see 50% off your first order on any of their products.

“Now to claim this deal, you must go to hi-a-health.com/a-e.”

This deal is not available on their regular website. The H-i-y-a-h-e-a-l-t-h.com/a-e and get your kids the full body support that they deserve. You guys know I am always looking for easy ways to get more protein in. Especially on days when I am running between the studio meetings, kids, all the things.

And lately, like I always do, I reach for my David protein bar.

The macros on these are honestly kind of crazy even Jeremiah loves them. You're getting 28 grams of protein for only 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. And they actually taste really good too. They have this very doughy texture with like little chunks and crisps throughout it. So it doesn't feel like you're forcing down one of those like typical protein bars, you know, like the cardboard ones.

And now David is available at Walmart Store's Nationwide and on Walmart.com, which makes them so much easier to grab. You can even try a single bar for just $2.97. I've been loving now the blueberry pie and the salted peanut butter, but they have 8 flavors total. So don't just take my word for it. Go grab one for yourself. Head to Walmart today to stock up on four counts of your favorite flavors like blueberry pie and like my other one salted peanut butter.

And it's truly shocking. That just won example.

So we have all these different platforms now every week. I mean, we were on the sting and San Francisco two weeks ago. And there were use of platforms I not heard of. And there are platforms dedicated to adulthood hubs where children go. Really? Absolutely. What do you mean like updating apps?

Dating apps, hook up apps. We saw seven men were arrested in San Francisco five are currently being charged the other two cases under investigation. And one of the scenarios the decoys use law enforcement decoys use was a bad dad who wanted to offer up his two sons for sexual exploitation.

And we had guys show up, Annie, to exploit a six and a 13 year old boy including a man who was a lawyer who managed a multi million dollar fund.

Ivy League educated had a child of his own married to the dean of the San Francisco State Law School. This guy at noon on a weekday shows up at this house in running shorts and t-shirt to try to exploit these children. And he tells me I'm broken. Oh, okay, obviously. Well, but you don't expect people like that to be in these in these things, but yet that's who we find.

Last week in Maryland, a little league coach who had been a tutor at a learning center who was married to the to a pharmacist at a major East Coast hospital. The guy who was a teacher at a Catholic private school who was a dean at a church in there to meet boys.

“I mean, this this is not stopping and you would think, and we see people in the chat say, I don't want to meet Chris Hansen or is this a share of someone so I think and they show up anyway.”

Of course they do because they did it's probably never happened.

What are the odds to your point? It's these monsters who are hiding in plain sight and imagine the collateral damage, imagine the call that that wife gets and how does she explain it to the children. And then we have access in some of these recent investigations to the jailhouse calls. So you hear the man, the predator, the alleged predator, call the wife and say, "Oh, I swear to me to mistake. Yeah, you made a mistake." Yeah. So over the so many decades that you have been doing this and I say that respectfully.

No, no, no. You've been at this for decades. I have a question for you. Yes.

“How do you restrain yourself during these things when you are hearing the just disgusting things that these predators are after and what they want to do?”

I would imagine that that takes a lot. Well, look, the wonderful thing about the streaming world. The wonderful thing about having your own network is that we have a little more freedom to express ourselves. This doesn't all have to be packaged into a neat little network segment. If it's worth 12 minutes, we do a 12 minute segment for taketown on true blue. If it's an hour, we do an hour. And so we get a chance to dig into all these cases in a way that is important in terms of holding this guy accountable,

just as for potential victims out there, and to taking our viewers inside the mind of a predator inside the sting operation, inside, you know, the cases that are built by these very dedicated law enforcement people across the country. And we're coast to coast now. Every month, the new jurisdiction comes online. We are everywhere and we continually do this year round. And so my restraint, you know, look, I can get aggressive with them, right verbally, but it's not like I'm going to jump across the table.

“Right, be theirs, you know, that's part of the program. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think a lot of people would. But you know, I'm so focused on getting inside this guy's head, you know, as a chess game, how do I get this guy to talk?”

You know, the lawyer in San Francisco. I want to lower it. Well, that's fine. And that's a fine thing to tell the detectives on the interview. But this is a different thing here. You can either talk to me and help me understand what happened today, or you cannot. But I'm going to ask all the questions. We have a please lieutenant from DC Metro Police Department, show up in an investigation a few months back in Maryland, this guy was in charge of dignitary protection for the Washington DC Metro Police Department, motorcays of the president visiting dignitaries.

And he spent 30 days online grooming a 15-year-old boy, somebody he thought was a 15-year-old boy, and he showed up and they didn't come in the house at first. They took him down in the parking lot of this thing house, because, you know, maybe he's got a gun, maybe he's going to harm himself.

But you're going to listen to my questions for good 20 minutes. You're the one who showed up here and guess what, a week prior to this interview, he pleaded guilty to those chargers, took five years in prison.

And now he's got another case facing him because when they searched his house in another county in Maryland, they found a cache of CSAM.

We're not getting all cataloged, all organized on his computers. And now he has to face chargers in that. He's going to go away from minimum five, and then whatever he draws in the other case. How often would you say that during these sting operations, when you do have that period of time to talk with them before they go with law enforcement, that they actually do share things with you rather than being just being down. I think 97% of the time they talked to me. And what's the most common thing that you hear from them?

“I was just here to check on the child. I was going to tell them. Yeah, that's what the teacher and the decand teacher and the literally coach told me last week.”

This is just days ago. We just finished this.

And I was going to tell them that this is wrong. I was online, when I was young, and I was exposed to this, and I was going to sit with them and tell them, it's impossible. It's, you know, how do you expect me to believe that? They've thought of an excuse. I'm aware of it because they know there's a chance it can get caught. But it's interesting that they all have the exact same excuse. Like there's no originality with any of them. Yeah, I mean, what's well you get something that's that, you know, you didn't expect, but what's the wildest thing you've heard?

“Well, I think the wildest thing is that they were going to just sit with the child and keep them company and wait for the mother to get home and teach them about the evil of their ways.”

It's like, what didn't you call the police? Why didn't you call 911? Why didn't you call child family services? And are they bringing items with them? Yes, many times. Many did bring condoms, obviously. They bring alcohol sometimes. They bring weed sometimes. They bring food. You know, we had a guy in Northern Michigan brought two happy meals. I mean, what does that say to you? Besides the fact that anybody who's had children remembers what a happy time it was to have the kids in the backseat going on a trip someplace in their car seats and hand back happy meals to the kids.

That's an innocent passage of life. And to have somebody's solid that by bringing it to a sting house. That gives me a picture. It did. Oh my gosh. And so we go back, you know, I have two podcasts. I've got predators I've caught and have a seat with Chris Hanson. So we go back on these cases when there's there are developments sentences or whatever and I did the happy meal guy just the other day on the podcast and just like you. I'm going through this and it did give me a sad feeling of my stomach and who brings happy meals to a predator sting this kind of evil.

“Is there a particular sting over the years that stands out to you more than the rest that will stay with you?”

They all stay with me in one way or another, you know, and you look, I'm really good about compartmentalizing this. You know, I lead a normal life. I don't dwell on the darkness. I don't, you know, I do regular guy things with my family ski down hills hit balls with sticks and, you know, escape it, you know, in a lot of different ways. I've maintained what I think is a health and level of, you know, mind about it. But there are certain things that will always stick with you. And one of them is when a guy brought his four year old child with him to a sting house and fortnight several years ago.

And he wasn't going to involve the child in a sex act, but he was in charge of the child that day. He was going to put him off in a room with a video while he exploited another child of 14 year old. And we saw him come up the driveway and the whole crew. I mean, these guys have worked with me in some of the darkest places in the world, you know, over seas under cover and various investigations, you know, and everybody just gasped, and the guy walks in, I said, I was like, look, you know why you're here? I know why you're here. You brought your son with you and I'm not going to put him through that.

So off you go, some law enforcement people will meet you outside and they did and they took the child away. So how to catch a predator ended, of course, and then you transitioned into take down and you have your podcast as you mentioned, can you talk to us a little bit about how to catch a predator ended? Well, I think that infamous. Yeah. And so obviously there was a case in Texas where an assistant district attorney, a prosecutor was caught online chatting with two different 13 year old boys.

He never showed up, but the police in that case thought there was enough evidence to charge him with the crime. The crime is in most states committed with the chat online.

They went to go arrest him, and as they were arresting him, he decided to take his own life. Later, they found chopper onography on his computer.

Yeah. Right. I would have preferred them arrest him at the DA's office the next day that would have been more dramatic television, but this is what they decided to do.

They didn't want him to destroy evidence. So they went to his house arrest him. He chose to do that. Now, we continued doing to catch a predator for a long time after that.

“We did several other investigations. There's this feeling online that that ended the show. We continued the show. I think, and I was there at the time, they made the decision to discontinue the show because it had become very expensive.”

And they realized that they could do extended versions and the predator raw on MSNBC and make a lot of money without going out to shoot other investigations. And it had become very expensive because ABC tried to steal the show away. And there was a bidding war for the tech people who worked on the show. And in those days, it's still required a lot of specialty work. Today, technology allows us to set these things up a lot easier, less manpower and certainly not have to cost $600,000 per episode, which was crazy.

So I think that had more to do with it than anything else. I'm pretty sure. So chatter online is more of a misconception.

It is because we did, you know, after Texas, we went on to do other investigations. And in those days, when we did an investigation, we would go there for a however many days. And they would make two hours of television and put different characters in each of those hours. You know, it had to be formatted for a network show. In streaming today, each guy is his own episode. Sometimes we combine them thematically, but most of the time each guy is his own episode, which allows us to understand who this guy is, what he did, why did it, if we can find out.

“And what happens in the case. And so I think it's much more fulfilling, not only from the television production or our story telling standpoint, it's also more fulfilling to see just as take its course.”

And in the streaming world, you can do that. Now, we do a lot of versions of these stories for Fox News. We're talking about doing some stuff with Fox News. So we have a network presence, which is important. And we have the independence and the ownership of distribution and content that you need in this new media world. I mean, I've watched this develop over 44 years as a reporter. I started in 1981 as a television reporter in Lansing, Michigan. I was still in college. And so to see this go all the way to being 66, you know, it's been fascinating for me. And it's been fulfilling to ride the edge of technology here.

You know, I got to be the only guy in my age in the world that's got a million point one TikTok followers.

I mean, and but it's a valuable asset. It's a valuable platform to share information. And then this same goes with the, you know, the YouTube channels. I mean, we talk about roll blocks on the have a seed podcast, you know, we can end up with a million people paying attention to this.

“And not only is that gratifying from a journalist dig business model, it's a million people who see how to protect their children online, which is arguably way more important than anything else.”

So how have you felt about the evolution of media over the last even just the last 10 years because it has shifted dramatically. I'm even saying journalists who are on networks who now are leaving the networks to create their own dependent. Why would I be with a network when I had my own network? I have true blue and I'm very fortunate and blessed to have these opportunities. So, you know, we've got, you know, every social media platform, we've got two podcasts, we've got a streaming network of our own, where we produce other documentaries too.

We've got a six-dortion documentary coming out in a couple weeks that is just mind-bottling and a very important thing for parents to see. We've got other documentaries in the pipeline too. So there's no limit to what we can do. It's really, you know, how many places I can be at the same time, which I'm trying to be as many as I can. I know I appreciate it. I appreciate you being here today. So let me ask you this and feel free to be brutally honest as a professional journalist and someone who is so highly respected in the space and you've been doing this for decades with the evolution of media.

How what's your perception or how does it make you feel when you see other people like myself who don't have a professional background in journalism or anything like that. Talking about cases or saying them spark up and cover different true crime cases or some of these people who I don't agree with are doing these things and they shouldn't be.

It's allowed people to have access and it's part of our developing first amendment, right? Everybody has a right to say and do what they think and feel and to share that.

“And it's up to the consumers out there to decide whether this is worthy of their consumption. And so it'll all shake out. I mean, you've done very well, you know, and you do a great job. Otherwise, you know, I wouldn't be here.”

My wife began a fan and then you and I met a crime con and went from there. But, you know, obviously there there's some real horrible people out there who are putting crap out there that's not true and you got to turn it out. I mean, the consumer will figure this out. There's a reason why retail stores go in and out of business consumers don't like to be fooled. Once they're fooled, you know, those people are done. Once they burn up, they're done. You have a loyal following because you produce content that is meaningful to people and they can relate to you in your life at your age. You speak to your demographic.

I've been blessed and I hope you are too that yours down the road when you're my age that you continue to have that key demographic. I've been blessed to have that. I've got people who are 15 who follow me and I got people who are 94 who follow me.

“And that's why it's important to have a presence on everything from Fox News to true blue to podcasts to TikTok. Can't you everybody? Everybody. Right. Well, and I have to say crime con when you came by the booth, you were the star of the booth.”

We were going to convert it to the Chris Hansen booth. Everybody who is there.

Well, again, I think look, it goes to your point about, you know, people who are full of shit, you know, and just say whatever they want and these platforms. They get burned off, you know, the world's a self-cleaning of it. Right. The crap gets swept off and burned up and swept away it's done. So people who are sincere, people who have intellectual integrity, people who have energy to go tell the story that nobody else is telling it away. Nobody else is telling it will survive in this. And that's what I've done. But I mean, you know, I, you know, I'd like to be able to sit here and tell you that at your age, I think this up and had a plan to execute it.

“I had a natural curiosity and a drive and a amount of energy that may be beat my colleagues, but it's, it's that same drive and curiosity and knowing that what I'm doing, I think is important and I think people respond to that. It's sincerity.”

And so yes, there are parodies and South Park will do something. But to me, that just shows that you've crossed that line into some sort of, you know, recognition and even though it is people poking fun at you or overly dramatizing what you do in some movies, some place, you know, people know how to find the truth. And you know, it shows that you've done something that's meaningful. After busy summer, I feel like I'm in like full on, get my house together mode. And one of my favorite places to find all of those little upgrades that make a space feel so much more elevated is quince.

They have everything from Turkish cotton towels, linen bedding, rugs, curtains, they even have a polstered furniture. Now, I love that the pieces feel really high quality and expensive without the crazy luxury markup. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middle man. So their prices are actually 50 to 80% less than similar luxury brands. I personally love quince because it makes it so easy to find pieces that feel polished and timeless without having to overthink it.

And you know, I'm always looking for ways to make my home feel more put together, my life feel more put together. And between their home goods, they're a pair all their everything. It's just the best.

Elevate your everyday home download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com/ae. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's qu-i-n-c-e.com/a-e. I feel like wireless is one of those bills that you kind of just get used to overpaying for, which is exactly why mint mobile makes so much sense. You're getting premium wireless without the premium price tag. Right now all of mint plans are just 15 bucks a month, even unlimited with high speed data plus unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5g network.

And switching is actually really easy. You can even keep your current phone and your number. I switched about a year ago now and it took me less than like 15 minutes. So to get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/a-e. That's mintmobile.com/a-e. Put your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/a-e. That's it. There's no cash. Up from payment of $45 for 3 months, 90 for 6 months or 18 for 12 months plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigs may slow when network is busy.

Well, and I do, I promise everybody we are going to get to the movie of it all and I do want to hear more about that, but first you did bring up Roblox a couple of times and I want.

And parents cannot be more careful. I'm saying that for years, so I am so happy to see you're here and you can educate a little bit on that. So obviously things have shifted drastically since the how to catch a predator today. So speaking of Roblox that is obviously not new, but it's one of the new age technology from instant messaging or the chat room.

“Can you explain a little bit to the listeners what Roblox is a multi-level gaming platform upon which anybody from the age of five.”

The age of five to 105 can play games and also create games and communities in which you can have these interactions gaming.

Many times healthy and Roblox is stated goal is to create this community where people can engage creators can engage and people can learn and have fun and grow. And Roblox has in response to some of these criticisms created age verification systems and facial recognition systems and it does take part in mandatory reporting of inappropriate activity to the National Center for Missing Exploded Children, Nick Mac, as it's supposed to.

“But too often I think these companies and Roblox is right at the top of the list don't want to take those extra steps because extra steps mean limiting engagement.”

And when you are multi-billion dollar publicly traded company limiting engagement means limiting profits. And so they have a responsibility to their users and to society in general to make sure the platform is as safe as it can make it.

I don't think and many experts in this field including those in law enforcement don't think they're doing everything they can and these victims go back years in the dangerous games documentary.

Two hours two different parts and I've got a third on the way because this 764 this nc is neolistic hate group is now explaining Roblox as well that's a whole other story. But we went back years I interviewed a 30 year old man who was in the military this guy can deadlift 716 pounds.

“And he was brought to tears in this interview talking about how he was exploited by a predator at Roblox.”

We had a woman in the course of this investigation you know who Slepp is right you probably met him at crime college. Slepp is a young content creator who himself was exploited on Roblox became an advocate tried to work with Roblox what his Roblox do. And he shows me how to go on Roblox and we watch as we're approached by a potential predator either somebody from moblox was in that audience or knew what we were doing. You can go to have a sea with Chris Hanson. We do that. We used that presentation at crime con in our segment our latest Roblox segment on the have a sea with Chris Hanson people need to see this.

It happens live on state now why is Roblox so attractive to predators because it is designed for kids in many ways I look at the characters you know but then you dig a little deeper and there are bathroom games and there are bedroom games and games that simulate violent acts that have torn apart our society mass shootings. And again Roblox says it tries to police these things and balance user freedom and privacy with a safe platform but as Roblox this why don't you let law enforcement conduct sting operations on your platform.

Absolutely why not why not do that because they wouldn't have as many users exactly well and so just to circle back a little bit again for anyone who's listening who's a parent who doesn't know. And only what Roblox is about how these predators would then attempt to groom their child who's using it can you walk them through like the live chat feature and what that is a live chat feature there's a friend feature there there have been limits put on some of these features by Roblox right but still a kid can go into an area chat that can be approached by an adult unless the parent has absolutely prohibited this and that's why parents need to understand how Roblox works because there are ways that parents can make this safer.

Right I tell people all the time just because they say they're 15 years old doesn't mean they're 55 years old sitting in there under where their mom's basement started by empty pizza boxes you can say whatever you want you don't know the person in real life you don't know that person.

“So then they have the conversation sometimes they take them over to discord where Roblox has a big presence.”

Where people can do all kinds of things gaming viewing interactions not particularly well regulated law enforcement would suggest so that they're going there they have more freedom to have a conversation. But Roblox has a server on discord there's a tight relationship there and then depending on how the grooming process goes it goes to the cell phone and texting and all let's meet up and let's do this and let's do that we had a case.

During the early phases of the dangerous games investigation Roblox investigation where a woman from Texas reached out on TikTok.

And said you know I'm trying to get a hold of Chris Hanson's team because I caught my husband grooming a child on Roblox. I wife who monitors Gabriel monitors that the TikTok account very closely flags me and I said well we're going to get on this track around and talk to her.

“We go to hauling in Texas with this takes place it turns out the wife caught the husband chatting with somebody who's 15 in California and they were clearly inappropriate who is grooming her she saw the text confronted him.”

It's nothing. It's nothing. Don't worry about it. You're going to ruin our whole family calls the cops totally betrayed the cops start investigating. We find out about it all we got a haulage and interview the woman.

Find the husband now that this point they're separated heading for divorce obviously because it would happen.

In the parking lot of his workplace confront him with the tax I had the tax his chat with the 15 year old girl. The wife then conducts her own investigation goes online. Like I always say there's nobody better than a housewife or a college girl to find stuff online don't they'll find it and get to hold through her own investigation on social media Facebook and whatnot finds who the girl is calls the mother unless the mother she shot at this guy was grooming her daughter. They give a full statement to the homeless and police department they get a warrant I get a call saying they're going to arrest him now I've already done the interview with him took him down the parking lot predator style done the interview with with with the poor wife whose life is torn to pieces over this thing they've got a bunch of kids.

So then I said when they're going to arrest him well I had no time to get the house I said do me fair to get the video and you're so phone she gets the video of a him being arrested this whole thing is a segment within the dangerous games documentary and it was so organic and so powerful.

“That it drove the point home on so many levels one law enforcement's got a really be aggressive to you have to advocate your own cases apparent this woman.”

Made this case against her husband turned her life upside down financially emotionally. The husband's family's all upset. She's got to explain this to her kids and the dirt bag husbands.

Get locked up now she's got to figure out how she's going to manage this and put it all back together and work enough jobs to feed her kids and keep them close. Unfortunately it's a it's a tiny family and they all pitch in here grandma's there and everything else but I mean that's a risk and now you understand from an organic level why sometimes spouses don't turn their their. I don't have a lot of courage to do that, but it takes a lot of courage to roll up your life in order to for the great good right and now going back to discord and and I've only been on discord a little bit here in the past and to your point it was like a sewer I was like getting out of here I couldn't run away fast enough but to break it down even more simply for those listening could would you compare is it fair to compare it to like.

It's instant messaging it's almost as like what a will chat rooms were right it's a combination of chat rooms twitch gaming all at all and one you can do right right there's all kinds of stuff and then ultimately to texting. Now there's a lot of other apps I know because I have a seven year old son and he has the switch and he's doing all this and I like I'm like a helicopter parent looking at every single game turning off every single chat feature everything no friend request know this know that.

Looking watching if you if you're putting pictures of your.

“Potential model daughter in binning suits up. Guess who's going to look at those and so you have to protect your kids you have to have you know an extra layer of common sense and and just awareness about it because it is everywhere.”

And and you have to and you know we we talked for a minute earlier about the sex stores and stuff going on and that to me I mean I've sat across too many parents who's children have killed themselves good parents good kids good homes. Professional people whose children got caught up in a moment they couldn't see their way out of it speaks to that my mantra which is you got to tell kids that you're out here plan on the super highway and stuff can happen.

And stuff probably will happen and you're going to make a dopey child like mistake you will because that's what kids do when I was a kid that mistake didn't hold the consequences it does today.

“So you got to tell your kids that look if you do make a mistake and there's a likelihood that you may hear the rules but if you mess it up you need to come to me and I'm not going to beat you up over it.”

To gather we will solve it will report it and we'll go to the police department and it's different now than it was 20 years ago 20 years ago not every police department had the wherewithal to go after these cases today they're excited to go after them. They have the technology they have a cybersquad they have people dedicated to this cause and they will to the best of their ability investigate these cases but what you don't want is a 15 or 16 year old kid who's embarrassed because they sent explicit pictures to somebody they thought was a hot curl ended up being a Nigerian con artist and now they're beating this kid up for 50 bucks every day on a gift card.

To say oh my god my world is over kids are so closely aligned with their social media presence and the thought of an embarrassing picture getting out there grandmas and it just it just crushes them but it's a 30 minute crisis. And even if it does get out there so what you're off to college in a year nobody knows but it feels you look at people on chursey critical things about you they say it about me hard to believe because we're good people we do we're good people do good stuff right we're not evil people we do a job it's an important job and people will nitpick at you anyway we can't listen to it.

“You have to be a stoic you have to think about courage discipline wisdom justice those are the things you worry about it life and you have to apply those everything you do release I think so.”

And so if you think about it that way and shut out the noise and you need to share that with your kids.

It doesn't matter that person's on acts that person's on here that person's there they're not real and nobody gives a rat to ask what they said people are so consumed with them yourself right. Now you brought up something interesting you had mentioned when people are posting photos or videos of their 15 year old girl and a bathing suit. One of the things that I had touched on and I went into a big deep dive about a year ago and was people posting their children on the internet. I've been getting this partnership with Pampers with this with that and when you look into it I know how works with Brandeals as I'm sure you've explored it well they want the analytics they want your demographics so there was one woman who showed that when she shared her analytics with a diaper company I'm just going to say that.

The majority of her followers were men the majority of the people saving her photos were men of her toddler aged daughter and Pampers still went forward saying we're going to pay you for it. I've never seen see Sam right I've never seen I never want to see it but I know what it is and I know people whose job it is to to identify it examine it and prosecute these cases and the same guys who watch that the bad cop who had hundreds of images categorized catalog is the same guy who's looking at that stuff.

Because that's fueling their desire and if you think for one minute there isn't a link between viewing of seesam and offending then you're not in the real world because there is definitely a link people talk about well they're just looking at something that's not there.

They make up a voice for them. They make up this whole backstory and they're saving these images and with the brand deal with that too it's like they don't care because all they want is the exposure of their product was to them it's another click another eyeball and so what would your warning be to people listening who are posting your job would you put your child in a diaper and let them alone in the park.

“No would you let them crawl around the wall by themselves or an airport by themselves. No so why would you put them out on the internet version of that it's it don't do it. It could be that important to to.”

I'm very cautious about posting I mean even though it's my job and I post stuff related to work we post nice vacation photos with our adult children we do a lot of stuff and I even am careful about locations. I don't need everybody knowing where I'm at or where my kids are who my kids are. But you protect your family and people need to take that same precaution. Let me ask you this and it's a dark question and I don't know if you hadn't know the answer but what would you say like one out of every X amount of people is a predator.

So hard you know people you always ask you know how many predators are online at any given time and we got focused on this 50,000 number which means nothing it was just something that was out there in the in the sphere of discussion. You don't know I mean the internet is so ubiquitous. I mean I'm sure somebody's got a percentage of humanity who thinks about this and then actually does something evil I don't know but what I do know is every predator we catch for ever predator we catch.

We've saved a child from being if not more for being offended for being victimized so okay let's move into the movie of it all.

“Most of us picked up a bank years ago and never really look back right but if you're still dealing with those unnecessary fees it might be time to rethink that and that's where time comes in.”

Time is changing the way that people bank they're not like traditional old banks who charge fees and gatekeep perks and rewards time offers the most rewarding fee free banking. All with no overdraft fees no monthly fees no minimum balance fees you get 5% cash back on time card and a category of your choice like gas or groceries and it's just the best. So join the millions who are already banking fee free with America's number one choice for banking head to chim.com/serialously that's chim.com/serialously sign up now and only takes a few minutes.

Chim is a fintech not bank banking services and chim card provided by chim's bank partners qualifying direct deposits required terms and limits apply go to chim.com/disclosures for details.

Because obviously prime time is coming out with Robert Pattinson starring as you which is crazy to think I would imagine what was it like getting that call not only that they were going to be doing a movie but also that he was going to be playing. We had heard you know obviously with all the different properties I have and all the platforms some of the people who are involved in the management also tangentially have relationships in the Hollywood world so we had heard that this was in the works.

“A couple months ago they came out and said hey look we're doing this we'd like you to you know have some sort of.”

Consideration in terms of helping us with this I haven't seen it you know.

Did you sit in on any of the filming work as a consultant or so they they put together their whole storyline and then came to me correct okay.

So I'm going to get a private screening in the next week or so and then I'll be able to tell you what I like it or don't like it and how dramatized it is and my suspicion is that they used my name because it helps in a commercial enterprise. And until I see the full movie you know I as a reporter it's sort of silly for me to talk about something that I haven't seen yet so I'm going to see it. I've seen the trailer. I've seen the trailer. What are your thoughts on the trailer?

It looks dramatic. It looks very dramatic. But again you know I've been busy being the real Chris Hansen so I don't have a lot of time to focus on the fake Chris. You have a phone rubber pants and I'm looking. I look I know that you know he's a very popular actor. I know that the director is a popular. But I also have some questions you know what's like wood's motive here.

We don't know but I'll find out and I'll promise all what you know. I want the follow up. I'm really you know I'm kind of I wonder why they wouldn't have had enlisted you to come on board as I don't know what the exact term would be like but kind of like a consultant role as their film.

Well we'll find out.

“Yeah all right so when you got the call not only that they were making the movie but that he was going to be playing you what was that way because he isn't a less star.”

Yeah absolutely so you know obviously they they want a commercial endeavor to succeed and they think this is the way it's going to succeed. You know I didn't get to choose my own my own guy. Who would you have chosen? That's a good question and I knew it was coming and I should have had a better answer prepared for you but.

I always thought you know I had discussions years ago about I had crafted a script.

And I thought Dennis Leary would be a guy to play me depending on the age of it all. We are by the way just started we signed a two book deal with Simon Schuster for Chris Hansen thriller series. And we're deep into that so every day I've got a is this the book Chris Hansen and who has a different name in the book. Is this the fake movie Chris Hansen is this what I've really got to do today. Who am I today?

“He's just the me with all those and we're actually existential crisis every morning to figure out where we've got to.”

Well you know I work with a wonderful writing partner named Joe Garner who produces over the podcast and I have such an incredible team and I got to mention Kelly McLeare who you know.

From crime con who does all the work the producing work for take down but.

You know it it allows you and I've written a book before I wrote a book about the Predator experience in 1516 years ago I suppose but it's. It's really a great exercise in creativity to take all the things you set aside all the ideas all the things you wanted to express but didn't have time to in the actual. Production of the stories and I've got this great. You know vault of creative stuff that's just ready to go into these books I'm very excited for it so aside from the books. True blue take down your podcast what else what's next as if you don't have enough on your play well you know we explore a lot of potential documentaries.

You know that the sixth or she in for instance there's the I cooperated in the i'm Chris Hansen documentary which is more of a profile of me that's coming out right around the same time the movie is. Just after the the the a 24 movie.

Um and so I have a lot of topics that interest me you know and so we get to those is we have time but I've probably got.

Six or seven other documentaries in the works either shooting or conceptually or you know getting the write ups ready to go so it's it's busy you know look it's a great time alive right my kids are grown everybody's working. You know I got a wonderful wife and and I have time to do all this stuff and so it really opens you up creatively. And gives you a great deal of energy to God and do this and you know I'm a student of the world and I get to write a report about it every Thursday and every Wednesday and every Monday every time these.

Different shows so we need Chris. Yeah well we may you know we may try that one day but. Inside from the predator and predator piece of it and bringing them down is there anything else like in the crime universe that you're interested in or is right now that you're following. So next up is fraud okay. Waste.

Mismanagement theft. I've got some cases that. So blow your mind and we're gonna.

“Well I think when you talk about systems that are set up in society so that the challenge economically challenge people get a leg up on.”

You know the EBT cards or the certain benefits they're being abused across the country in this state in virtually every state and I've got. So who have been undercover for months on this. Who I've been working with and what you're going to see on some of this fraud stuff is really just outrageous. You're going to get your fraud straight. You can catch your fraudster.

If you haven't trademarked it yet you better. Yeah I'm on the website. Yeah yeah. Do it all. It's in process.

Okay so what out of all these projects that you have going on that you've done what's been the most rewarding one for you. What the all are rewarding in different ways. Obviously the take down predator franchise is very rewarding because we're creating dialogue and awareness that you know doesn't exist or doesn't exist at the level it should. We're preventing these guys from. We're preventing them from being children where I think in some cases helping law enforcement to realize we can do this and we can partner with you me and really make something that's compelling and sends a message to the community that we're not going to stand for this.

Wanting to to collaborate on these things.

“Have you ever worked or have you ever heard of child rescue coalition?”

Yeah. I work very closely with them. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to say everything feels like it's such like an organic thing that was like aligned.

Oh yeah. No we love child rescue coalition. In fact I was I hosted their event last this past year and now we're right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I've had Greg on the podcast. Oh yeah. And so the technology where you can see the the trade of child. Explicit material in real time is shocking.

I was chatting with Greg today when they pulled up that map for me. Yeah. Yeah. I did it on my podcast and we we were very involved. We raised a lot of money for them this year.

Oh fantastic. Yeah. That feels like such a. Yeah. No.

And we've got some stuff going with them too. Okay.

“So can you let everybody know where they can find you?”

True blue. To our UBLU watch true blue dot com. That's where the take down predator investigative series is. I think we're up to like 270 episodes. That's a lot to binge guys.

Yeah. We've got the podcast predators of caught drops every Monday. And have a see with Chris Hanson and comes out Wednesday. The take down episodes drop every Thursday every Thursday.

Never miss three brand new pieces of content every week.

The documentaries, extortions coming out. I'm Chris Hanson's coming out. Fox News with Jesse Waters. We do a lot of work there and. And to catch a fraudster coming soon.

I don't think I missed anything. I love that. Well, and I'll put all the links in there. Yeah, I do. If you ever anticipate that your iconic lines would become.

As bold as they are where people have shirts made with them now. No. I never did. And it's funny because they have a seed line. It was basically a way to get control of the environment.

Especially in the early investigations where we didn't have law enforcement. Now, you know, we have a briefing with law enforcement. And, you know, if sometimes law enforcement takes them into custody before I even get a chance to interview. That's in an interview room at a Sheriff's Office. And that's fine because it's still a very compelling interview.

Sometimes they come in and I get a chance to talk to him first. Now, if he gets fidgety or tries to run, he's grab. Yeah. He's handcuffed. And then I talked to him.

But in the early days, we didn't have those options. It was either I get him to have a seed or he runs and he's gone. We couldn't chase him. Yeah. We weren't allowed to.

So the have a seed, have a seed right over there.

And the focus on the physicality of the room was critical.

Yeah. And that was my way of controlling the situation. Well, even thinking back to when I used to watch how to catch a predator, like, you know, how this looks. Or like, what's that in the bag? Yeah.

Well, it was all developed organically. Yeah. We had an investigation in Ohio years ago. And Guy came in and he was bad guy. He had court date the following Monday for sexually assaulting a young relative. He was there to assault a girl.

And he was a short person, like, dwarf. And he worked at a military base. So he comes in and I said, you got to hop up and have a seat there. No, I'm good right here. I said, no, and I'm thinking, if he doesn't get in the stool, he's out of the camera shot.

Because he was so short. So he had so he hops up there and then we have our interview right there. So, you know, all those little things that behind the scenes, they're so challenging and darkly humorous.

“And yes, I mean, the dark humor of it is, is part of, I think, the popularity.”

So I lean into that, of course I do. Yeah. Well, I have to tell you. I know it only in the fan, but I appreciate so much what you're doing as a parent, as just a human being. Everything, all the work that you do.

Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having us in beautiful Orange County California. You definitely have to come back once you see me in life. We have a promise.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. Done and done. Thank you, honey.