On Nov. 20, Iowa City resident Ivan Galvan, 31, was sentenced to 80 months in federal prison after a 2021 CyberTip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led Johnson County’s Joint Forensic Analysis Cyber Team to uncover multiple videos and images of child sexual abuse material on his social media.

Detective Sgt. Ben Lord of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, one of five members of the Joint Forensic Analysis Cyber Team, or J-FACT, said Galvan’s case is part of a crisis that has grown since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“With a lot of people at home on their computers more, the reports that we were getting related to internet crimes against children skyrocketed,” Lord said.

Internet crimes against children encompass offenses such as the possession, distribution, or production of child sexual abuse material, online solicitation, and exploitation of minors through digital platforms.

According to data provided by Nathaniel McLaren, special agent in charge of Iowa’s Internet Crimes Against Children task force,

Lord attributed the increase to the shift to online schooling for children and remote work for many adults, which placed potential victims and perpetrators in shared digital spaces more frequently.

“That was one of the fallouts of the pandemic that I don’t think it discussed enough,” Lord said. “I think we really have reached a crisis point with this type of thing in our society.”

As internet crimes against children rose and the demand for experts in cyber forensics, which focuses on analyzing digital devices and data to investigate and solve crimes, became increasingly critical, local law enforcement recognized the need for a more unified approach.

For years, Todd Cheney of the Iowa City Police Department was the county’s only digital forensic investigator. That changed in 2019 when Lord obtained his certification, leading the two to often share equipment and resources to handle the rising caseload.

“We would frequently end up at each other’s offices, borrowing things, returning things,” Lord said. “There were days where we would see each other three or four times a day.”

This prompted Johnson County Sheriff Brad Kunkel to propose a 28E agreement — a legal framework allowing government agencies to collaborate — to the Johnson County Board of Supervisors in July 2021, establishing the J-FACT team with investigators from the Sheriff’s Office, Iowa City Police Department, and University of Iowa Police Department.

The Supervisors approved the agreement unanimously.

“I’m proud of the political leadership in this county for recognizing the importance of these internet crimes against children cases,” Lord said. “There are other places in the United States where their leadership is failing. And I think we’re doing a good job of being responsible and taking care of our children here.”

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Since its inception, the J-FACT team has expanded to include five members, Lord said. The team now consists of Lord, Cheney, Tiffany Lord of the UI Police Department, Hanna Dvorak of the Coralville Police Department, and Ryan Rockefeller of the North Liberty Police Department.

All five members are certified forensic computer examiners, accredited by the International Association of Computer Investigative Specialists.

Although the pandemic-driven rise in internet crimes against children spurred the team’s creation, Lord and Cheney emphasized its broader role in various cases.

“Anything that’s going to be a high-level case is almost always going to have digital items that are seized. Usually, it’s cell phones,” Cheney said.

Part of the work of J-FACT, Lord said, involves extracting data from digital devices without altering it and preserving the data as digital evidence.

“A lot of times, the investigators are interested in the user’s location if that’s recorded on the phone,” Lord said. “Or did they make an incriminating statement in a text message or chat.”

Cheney said the J-FACT team has given Johnson County the resources to process digital forensic evidence more efficiently, reducing backlogs and allowing investigators to take a proactive approach to tracking perpetrators of internet crimes against children.

“We’re able to actually go out ourselves to scour the Dark Web for people who are sharing or trying to get child-exploited material,” Cheney said.