TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WIAT) – The West Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force has made its first arrest involving AI-generated child pornography.
“We know it’s out there, we’ve seen it but this is the first time we’ve ran across it in during an investigation,” said Phil Simpson, commander of the West Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force.
On Friday, the task force received a tip that Richard Wayne Smalley, 40, of McCalla, had a photo of a nude child on his phone he had created using AI. The task force, along with local law enforcement, received search warrants, found the photo and arrested Smalley for possessing and creating AI-borne child sex abuse materials.
Smalley is currently out on a $30,000 bond, according to court documents.
“This child is still being exploited,” Simpson said. “Even though when they took the photo, they were fully clothed.”
The arrest comes two years after the Alabama Legislature passed an updated version to the Alabama Child Protections Act. The act now includes AI-generated child pornography, whether the person in the photo is real or not.
“What we’re finding is that [the AI images] are based on a real child’s photograph,” Simpson said. “That’s the concerning part. This child might not know there are adult images of them out there.”
Predators can obtain photos of children several ways: directly from the child, taking the photo themselves, or through social media.
“We are very strongly recommending to parents that they be very careful with the images they allow of their children to be published online,” Simpson said.
That goes for family, friends, and the child because while some photos are innocent in nature, there are people with bad intentions.
“What they have done is, they take these pictures to make sexually explicit images to extort the child or parent,” said Erik Grant, cyber intelligence expert with the North Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force.
Typically, sextortion is when someone sends a sexually explicit photo of themselves, and that photo is used as blackmail, but online predators are making the blackmail themselves.
“It’s to get them to send real images, they’re going ‘hey, I made these images of you with your clothes off, if you don’t send me more I’m going to release it’,” Grant said.
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