Dozens Arrested in Online Solicitation Sting

Just under thirty people are facing criminal charges after they were caught engaging in alleged sexually explicit conversations and soliciting sexual encounters with police posing as young boys in girls.

Mesa County police and prosecutors arrested and charged three Colorado men and plan to arrest and charge at least twenty five more. There were actually sixty four suspects from across twenty four different states and a few from other countries as well.

David Christopher Landin, 37, John Larue Merritt, 24, and Nathanael Blair Metzler, 24, were arrested and face charges of child enticement, Internet luring of a child, Internet sexual exploitation of a child, attempted sexual assault on a child, obscenity wholesale promotion and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Fifteen investigators from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, local law enforcement agencies, and the Mesa County District Attorney's Office, carried out the sting between March 5 and March 9.

The Investigators created online profiles that appeared to belong to boys and girls between the ages of eight and fourteen. Suspects allegedly began contacting the Investigators almost immediately after the Investigators shared their profiles.

The Investigators identified themselves as under fifteen years of age in the private messages but the suspects allegedly continued to chat and engaged in explicit conversation, sending explicit videos and asked to meet for sex.