ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A trucker who traps child predators in his spare time has taken his act to an Albuquerque truck stop. The video that shows him catching an alleged predator in a sting is taking off, but how does local law enforcement feel about it?
The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office knows we have a problem here. They said they receive about a hundred tips a month for internet crimes against children. Now, a trucker is taking the law into his own hands.
First, there are months of messages.
“I have ten online decoys, and what they do is download popular apps that all our kids use,” Anthony Greene said.
Then, Greene travels thousands of miles.
“I live in St. Louis, and I drive to California, so I run I-40 straight through New Mexico every week.
It all leads up to a confrontation with an alleged predator.
“Is this the first time you are trying to meet a child?” Greene asked.
“Yes,” the man responded.
A trucker from Missouri confronted a man in Albuquerque who allegedly showed up to meet an underage girl for sex at a truck stop near the Big-I late Sunday night.
“She said she was 18,” the man said.
“Number one, she did not say she was 18,” Greene responded.
“Well, she said she was 15…” the man said.
“Oh, now you’re saying she was 15,” Greene said.
Greene is with Truckers against Predators, and he has a team that poses as children online to lure in predators and expose them.
When Greene confronts them along his route, he broadcasts it to tens of thousands on Facebook Live.
“They call us vigilantes,” Greene said. “We are not vigilantes. We turn a camera on.”
Greene said this is the eighth state he has hit, conducting more than 100 stings.
Police in Arizona even credited the group for two arrests in December, but local law enforcement said it is not the best route.
“It is very dangerous for them to do something like that,” Anthony Maez with the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office said. “They have no idea what they are walking into.
Maez said the video does them no good under state law.
“It isn’t a case we could prosecute because the statute clearly states it has to be law enforcement or an actual child itself being preyed upon,” Maez said.
Greene said regardless, he is going to continue to stop in New Mexico to expose people.
“We are just going to keep pushing until they change the laws,” Greene said.
Greene started the group about a year and a half ago. He said as a father to a teenage girl, and a survivor of child sexual abuse himself, he is going to keep fighting to make a difference.
Greene said he sent the chat logs to the Albuquerque Police Department, but he has not heard back. KRQE News 13 also reached out to APD for comment on what the trucker is doing, but we did not receive a response.
