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19th July 2023
12:47pm BST
Warning: this articles discusses topics of child abuse.
Last August, an unnamed 15-year-old girl went missing after befriending 28-year-old, Ethan Roberts, online.
According to court documents, the minor was initially forced into producing child sex abuse images, before Roberts travelled over 2,000 miles from Arizona to Virginia to abduct her.
After she was announced as a missing child in the area, attempts were made in the neighbourhood to try and find the missing girl and return her to her family. However these attempts initially proved unsuccessful.
Most leads in the case came to nothing, reports Yahoo News.
When she was abducted, the minor was not allowed to bring anything with her, however she did have her Nintendo Switch, which later became the centre of the investigation.
The girl used her console to download games and watch videos on YouTube and a friend of hers saw her name pop up online. The friend's family contacted the police, and with the help of Nintendo they were able to track and locate the young girl.
Through the console, authorities were able to retrieve the IP address which had been used for downloading games, allowing the FBI to find the girl just 11 days after she went missing.
She was then reunited with her family as a direct result of her Nintendo Switch.
Former Arizona DPS director, Frank Milstead, who was involved in the case, explained just how unique this search operation was, saying: "It's probably nothing that anybody even had thought of at this point.
"The fact that somebody else down the road - another child - was bright enough to go, 'Hey, look, my friend is online, and she's been missing, and I need to tell somebody.'"
He continued: "Everything's connected to Wi-Fi to LTE. A cell phone, an iPad, a watch, whatever it is - you can use those things to locate people.
"The bad guys need to know that the police are watching and that you're leaving a digital footprint everywhere you go. We will find you."
Roberts was arrested and subsequently sentenced to 30 years in federal prison with charges including the creation of child sex abuse images and the transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
