Madonna King on 'Saving Our Kids The Inside Story of Taskforce Argos'

Good Reading Podcast

The crime of sextortion has reached epidemic proportions, fuelled by both sex offenders and organised scammers targeting our most vulnerable online. Children are some of the internet's most prolific and most naive users, and increasing numbers are finding themselves caught in an evil web of networked manipulators. Up to 70 percent of all new sexual exploitation content online is victim-produced, and much of it follows the same script and the abuser then blackmails their victim - for money or for more content. It's a script well-known to Detective Inspector Jon Rouse, who, for three decades, headed up Taskforce Argos, the expert arm of Queensland Police dedicated to hunting down online predators and rescuing children from abuse. In collaboration with Rouse, Madonna King tells the story of their investigations, from undercover cases to operations on a global scale, exploring what makes a victim and what makes an abuser, and distils the work that goes into bringing down perpetrators. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Madonna King about how 'sextortion' works and why it differs between boys and girls, Madonna explains the detailed and time-consuming work it takes to track down a predator, and how we must all begin that difficult conversation in order to foster greater awareness.