Predator Hunters USA Exposes Alleged Child Predators

Group has exposed alleged predators in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Iowa

VIRGINIA, Minn. – A Minnesota-based group is exposing who they call child predators online.

Predator Hunters USA uses decoy online accounts to find adults who want to meet with children for sexual activity, and they stream the whole think live on Facebook.

Predator Hunters USA has more than 77,000 followers on Facebook.

Since October 2018, the group has exposed close to seventy alleged predators, including at least five in the Twin Ports.

Josh Harwell lives in the Twin Cities area.

He founded Predator Hunters USA to protect kids.

“I’m a father, also a survivor of being a victim as a child so it hits pretty close to home and I don’t want my children or anyone else’s children to go through what I went through,” said Harwell.

He and about twenty other volunteers set up decoy accounts on sites many teens are using.

“PlayStation games, Xbox games, MeetMe, Grindr, Fortnite, all that stuff. We have decoys on all of them,” explained Harwell.

Adult users send sexually-explicit messages to the decoy accounts, thinking they’re children.

When the adults go to meet the kids, Josh shows up instead.

“We’ve traveled four or five hours, six hours at times, just one way, to meet with at predator,” said Harwell.

Thursday night, Josh came to Virginia where he exposed an alleged predator.

Before that, he was hosted by the Sexual Assault Program of Northern St. Louis County at an open house to get to know the community.

“We need to be proactive on this because these kids, once a crime happens, this affects them the rest of their lives,” said Jeanne Olson, Executive Director of the Sexual Assault Program.

Olson has helped sexual violence victims for thirty years.

She says Predator Hunters USA can help build awareness about a big problem in Minnesota.

“I wish law enforcement and people from our community like Predator Hunters that care about this issue could somehow work together because law enforcement cannot do it alone, sadly they just don’t have the time and the manpower,” said Olson.

According to Josh, of the approximately seventy exposures he’s done, five adults have been arrested and one has been prosecuted.

When he meets an alleged predator, Josh gives them a card with details about where they can find help.

We reached out to local officials like Superior Police Chief Nicholas Alexander and Douglas County District Attorney Mark Fruehauf to see how they feel about groups like predator hunters exposing alleged criminals.

They say the groups have to focus on keeping themselves and the suspects safe and should notify law enforcement as early as possible.