430: Chris Hansen Breaks Silence on Robert Pattinson Movie, New Sting Operations & A Predator’s Playbook

I'm Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC. Do you see how this looks? The just released trailer for Prime Time. You see how this looks. Again, you see how this looks. You see how this looks, right? You were worried as to whether or not. You guys are filming me, I feel like I'm being violated. There was a set up. There was a set up. Well, I think the violation was going to take place if we weren't here and it was a 15-year-old girl. That's suspicious as. It is suspicious AF, isn't it? Yes, it is. Hey, true crime besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialist League. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialist League. I'm your host, Annie Elise. I hope you are all having a fantastic start to your week so far, that you are, you know, whatever you're doing, whether you're on your way to work, maybe you're at work, maybe you're cleaning, maybe you're working out, who knows? But whatever you're doing, I hope you are ready for today's episode because this is one that I personally have been looking forward to so much. I didn't even realize that this episode was going to be on my bucket list and that this interview was on my bucket list until I realized it, which kind of now I do. Although I say that out loud, it makes absolutely no sense. But you may have been seeing the trailer for the upcoming movie "Prime Time" going viral right now. It stars Robert Pattinson. He's playing Chris Hansen, who I'm sure all of you are familiar with from back in the day, "Dateline NBC," "How to Catch a Predator." He now has his show "Takedown" on True Blue, which he is a network he co-founded, and he's just an icon in the space, right? His name is Sinatra. He's a great economist with "Catching Predators." And so as I said, you probably have seen this trailer going viral because Robert Pattinson channels Chris's voice, in my opinion, incredibly well. The movie feels like a thriller, but it really takes you through the early days of "How to Catch a Predator." What would go into these stings? What was it like for Chris Hansen? And here's the best part about today's episode, guys. We don't need to wonder. We don't need to see the movie to understand what went into these stings, how the stings are still operating today, because today I am joined by the one, the only, the child advocate of the century, Chris Hansen. And he is sharing directly with us not only things about the movie, but also what goes into stings, what he's working on now, how parents who are listening can really be educated on the dangers of Roblox, of how predators have evolved over the years from chat rooms on AOL, now to video games, and to text messaging, and Instagram, and all of the apps. And we're going to talk all things "Predators" today. So please join me in welcoming Chris Hansen. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to "Serialistly." Chris Hansen. Well, thank you, Annie. It's a pleasure to be here. I am so happy to have you here. Well, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. And there is so much that I want to talk to you about. Absolutely. OK, so I want to talk about the new movie, because obviously, Robert Pattinson is going to be starring as you in an upcoming movie called "Prime Time." How does that feel? Well, I tell you what, I've been so busy being the real Chris Hansen, I haven't had much time to check out the dramatized version. But I'm going to see it soon. And once I do, we'll talk about it. OK, great. I have a lot of questions about the movie. So we'll get there. I would love to start back. Let's rewind a little bit to the Dateline days, the "How to Catch a Predator" days, and what goes on inside a sting. Well, inside a sting, there's a lot going on. In the very beginning, in 2004, when we started this, we merely partnered with an online watchdog group called Perverted Justice. So it was their chatters. That group at the time would find these guys and post their identities on their website. I figured if we could combine their ability to be decoys with our ability to wire a house, it could be compelling. So we set up a house in Long Island, Bethpage. And I wasn't sure what was going to happen. But in 2 and 1/2 days, 17 guys showed up, including a New York City firefighter. So once we did that-- you know, this has evolved, as you can imagine, with technology, with the number of apps and platforms upon which adults can approach children. The whole world has changed in those 22 years. And we have had to change with it. But behind the scenes, a lot goes on. We have a location. We work a little different with each of our law enforcement partners today. We work everywhere from San Francisco, where we were just two weeks before this interview. We are in Maryland. We were in Maryland last week. And we continue to see shocking cases of men in even more bizarre scenarios than ever before trying to exploit children. How often would you say, if you could even put a ratio to it, that it's men versus women predators that you catch? Well, I think it's about half and half. Wow. Well, no, I shouldn't say that. I misunderstood your question. We have only caught male predators. OK. We have never had a female predator. We have never had a male predator surface in one of our investigations. OK. I thought you were talking about men looking for boys versus men looking for girls. That's about half and half. But in terms of female predators, we don't see them. And I think that's at least partially because the shrinks tell us that the female predators seek to know their victims. In other words, you're more likely to see a teacher-student scenario. They don't like the anonymity, where a male predator loves the anonymity of it. He likes to figure it out as he goes along. You know? So going back to the early days with one of the stings, after the Long Island sting, once you had the show, How to Catch a Predator, what would the process look like? Can you walk us through that? The process would be to find a location, a home, in the jurisdiction of our law enforcement partner. Because it became pretty apparent early on that to not partner with law enforcement until after the fact, which is what we did in the first two, wasn't socially responsible. These guys had to face justice. So-- That's why we always partnered with law enforcement. And that relationship has even gotten closer as the years have gone by. But typically, we find a house, our camera people and tech people wire the house, hidden cameras, remote. And then the decoys go online, posing as children. When they're approached by a predator, potential predator, if they go over the threshold of a sexual solicitation, a crime occurs online, they're given the address. And if they show up, I confront them. And then they're arrested. They're arrested by authorities. So what role does law enforcement play within that partnership with you? Law enforcement is the investigative arm. Law enforcement has to take this case and the evidence of this case to a prosecutor's office so that they face justice. So now we have law enforcement decoys. In other words, everybody involved in that part of the investigation, the chatters and everybody else, they're a member of law enforcement. On-site decoys are young or youngish-looking members of law enforcement, sometimes cadets or sheriff's deputies who work in the county jail. They look young, but they can pull off the role. The reason we do that is because then there is no chain of custody issues with the evidence. The chats belong to law enforcement. I have access to it, but they belong to law enforcement. And it makes for a much more seamless prosecution. So they're embedded, really, in all aspects of the state from start to finish and prosecution, yeah. Yeah, and we're embedded with them, too, right. Because it has to be that way. Because in the early investigations, there were some guys who were prosecuted after the fact. But we did have guys who just walked away. And those guys didn't face consequences. Now today, our successful prosecution rate is above 99%. Wow, that's incredible. And it's because of the way it's set up. Let me ask you this. In the early days, before you did partner with law enforcement more formally on this, did you ever get scared at any of these things of, like, what if this person-- Well, the first one, I mean, we didn't know, right. We could do a little bit of background. But we didn't have their full names. We didn't have a database to run them. So a guy, Mike, from wherever, shows up to meet a 13-year-old girl after a sexually charged conversation, I don't know who this guy is. I had security with me. Ronnie Knight, my security guy, many, many years was with me. And so I felt personally protected. I thought the crew would be protected. But it was pretty edgy. Now we've got a full team of law enforcement involved. So it's about as safe as it can possibly be. Well, as you know, I mean, it goes without saying, how to catch a predator has become a cultural phenomenon. Everybody knows about it or has heard about it or has seen some sort of role play of it in some regard. And I've noticed, as I'm sure you have, that a lot of people-- there is a very small group, I should say, on social media who now try to do their own vigilante justice and do these sting operations themselves. And they're not qualified. They're not working with law enforcement. Have you seen any of that? What's your take on it? Yeah, I've seen some. So look, I think any time a bad guy is exposed and is stopped before they can hurt a child or stopped before they hurt another child, obviously that's a good thing. I worry in some cases that the people they find don't get properly prosecuted because they don't go through the same protocols we do. Now, there's some out there who do. And there are some who work with law enforcement and there are some successful prosecutions and i think there is definitely a place in in our world for you know citizen journalists i mean look what youtube has done for people look how many crimes have been solved because of this this you know crowdfunding of information if you will so there's a place for it it just worries me that maybe a guy gets caught and doesn't get properly prosecuted it worries me that that sometimes the motives may not be the same as the motives we have working with authorities but you know i i'm so busy focusing on what we do i don't really focus much on what other people do well and so speaking of that you've been doing this now for decades starting with how to catch a predator now evolving into takedown obviously things have changed over the years you mentioned that earlier predators are getting more internet savvy smarter wiser there's a lot of things that are going on in the world that are changing you know there's now so many more methods out there of how they can prey on these victims and exploit them what was that shift like or that evolution like going from how to catch a predator to now take down and how are those different well think about this annie in the beginning we merely had decoys in chat rooms on aol and yahoo right i was at the aol chat room right i was writing asl in the chat exactly exactly age section location yeah so that's where we were maybe that antiquated platform called myspace yeah there too today you know there's been an explosion in the number of platforms including gaming platforms where adults can approach children and so we are seeing cases more horrifying more dangerous more graphic uh today than ever before uh and we just finished not too long ago our first uh documentary i'm not sure if you've seen it but we did a documentary on robots called dangerous games yes and you know this is a playground for predators and parents often don't realize it because they look at a game where the characters appear to be innocent you know lego characters and they don't realize the danger there and then these conversations are taken from wall blocks to discord which is you know about as dirtied up as you can get yeah and and parents don't understand this and then it goes to the the cell phone i mean we had in the roblox game where we had you know we had like a 10-year-old kid in roblox investigation in one county in florida we had a case where a young man was arrested for exploiting children all over the country like a dozen cases and we had a victim who is 10 years old who was exploited on roblox by a predator in the uk so if this is happening in marion county florida near ocala what's happening in the rest of the world and what we found is there is a lot happening back to school season is here which means that we are getting back into routines and in my house that includes making sure that the kids are getting the nutrients that they need to actually 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total so don't just take my word for it go grab one for yourself head to walmart today to stock up on four counts of your favorite flavors like blueberry pie and like my other one salted peanut butter check out walmart.com to find a store near you and it's truly shocking and that's just one example so we have all these different platforms now every week i mean we were on the sting in san francisco two weeks ago and they were using platforms i had not heard of and there are platforms dedicated to adult hookups where children go really absolutely like what do you mean like dating apps dating apps hookup bags apps we saw seven men were arrested in san francisco five are currently being charged the other two cases are under investigation and one of the scenarios the decoys used law enforcement decoys used was a bad dad who wanted to offer up his two sons for sexual exploitation and we had guys show up annie to exploit a six and a 13 year old boy including a man who was a lawyer who managed a multi-million dollar fund uh ivy league educated had a child of his own married to the dean of the san francisco state law school this guy at noon on a weekday shows up at this house in running shorts and a t-shirt to try to exploit these children and he tells me i'm broken oh okay obviously well but you don't expect people like that to be in these in these stings but yet that's who we find last week in maryland a little league coach who had been a tutor at a learning center who was married to the to a pharmacist at a major east coast hospital we had a guy who was a teacher at a catholic private school who was a deacon at a church uh and and there to meet boys i mean this this this is not stopping and you would think and we see people in the chat say i don't want to meet chris hansen or is this a sheriff so-and-so saying and they show up anyway of course they do because they think that it's probably never going to happen what are the odds to your point it's these monsters who are hiding in plain sight in plain sight and imagine the the collateral damage imagine the call that that wife gets and then you're like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry and how does she explain it to the children and then we have access in some of these recent investigations to the jailhouse calls so you hear the man the predator the alleged predator call the wife and say oh well i sort of made a mistake yeah you made a mistake yeah so over the so many decades that you have been doing this and i say that respectfully no no no you've been at this for decades i have a question for you yes how do you restrain yourself during these stings when you are hearing the just disgusting things that these predators are after and what they want to do i because i would imagine that that takes a lot well look the wonderful thing about the streaming world the wonderful thing about having your own network is that we have a little more freedom to express ourselves right this doesn't all have to be packaged into a neat little network segment right if it's a if it's worth 12 minutes we do a 12 minute segment for takedown on true blue if it's an hour we do an hour and so we get a chance to dig into all these cases in a way that is important in terms of holding this guy accountable getting justice for potential victims out there and to taking our viewers inside the mind of a predator inside the sting operation inside you know the cases that are built by these very dedicated law enforcement people across the country and we're coast to coast now every month a new jurisdiction comes online we are everywhere and we continually do this year round and so my restraint you know look i can get aggressive with them right verbally but it's not like i'm going to jump across the table right beat the ass you know that's not that's not part of the program i'd bail you out if you did yeah i know i appreciate that i think a lot of people would thankfully but but you know i'm so focused on getting inside this guy's head yeah you know it's a chess game how do i get this guy to talk you know the lawyer in san francisco i want a lawyer i want to learn well that's fine and that's a fine thing to tell the detectives on the interview but this is a different thing here you can either talk to me and help me understand what happened today or you cannot but i'm going to ask all the questions we had a police lieutenant from dc metro police department show up in an investigation a few months back in maryland this guy was in charge of dignity protection for the washington dc metro police department motorcades of the president visiting dignitaries and he spent 30 days online grooming a 15 year old boy somebody he thought was a 15 year boy. And he showed up and he didn't come in the house at first. They took him down in the parking lot of the Sting house because, you know, maybe he's got a gun, maybe he's going to harm himself. He's a cop. He knows what kind of trouble he's in. So by the time he comes in and I talk to him, you know, he gave me the old, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not going to talk without a lawyer. Well, that's fine. But you're going to listen to my questions for a good 20 minutes. You're the one who showed up here. And guess what? A week prior to this interview, he pleaded guilty to those charges, took five years in prison. And now he's got another case facing him because when they searched his house in another county in Maryland, they found a cache of CSAM, child pornography, all cataloged, all organized on his computer. So now he has to face charges in that. He's going to go away for minimum five and then whatever he draws in the other case. How often would you say that during these sting operations, when you do have that period of time to talk with them before they go with law enforcement, that they actually do share things with you? I think 97% of the time they talk to me. And what's the most common thing that you hear from them? I was just here to check on the child. Oh, yeah. They're concerned. I was going to tell them. Yeah, that's what the teacher and the deacon teacher and the little league coach told me last week. This is just days ago. And we just finished this up. And I was going to tell them that this is wrong. I was online when I was young and I was exposed to this and I was going to sit with them and tell them it's impossible. How do you expect me to believe that? They've thought of an excuse because they know there's a chance they can get caught. But it's interesting that they all have the exact same excuse. There's no originality with any of them. They all say the same thing. I mean, once in a while you get something that you didn't expect. What's the wildest thing you've heard? Well, I think the wildest thing is that they were going to just sit with the child and keep them company and wait for the mother. To get home and teach them about the evil of their ways. It's like, why didn't you call the police? Why didn't you call 911? Why didn't you call Child Family Services? And are they bringing items with them more times than not to? Yes, many times. Yeah, many times. They bring condoms, obviously. They bring alcohol sometimes. They bring weed sometimes. They bring food. We had a guy in northern Michigan who brought two Happy Meals. I mean, what does that say to you? Besides the fact that anybody who's had children remembers. Yeah. What a happy time it was to have the kids in the backseat going on a trip someplace, in their car seats, and hand back Happy Meals to the kids. That's an innocent passage of life. Yeah. And to have somebody sully that by bringing it to a Stinghouse. That gives me a pain in my stomach. It did. Oh, my gosh. And so we go back. I have two podcasts. I've got Predators I've Caught and Have a Seat with Chris Hansen. So we go back on these cases when there are developments, sentences, or whatever. And I did the Happy Meal guy just the other day on the podcast. And just like you, I'm going through this, and it did give me a sad feeling in my stomach. And who brings Happy Meals to a Predator sting? This guy did. Evil. Yeah. Is there a particular sting over the years that stands out to you more than the rest that will stay with you? They all stay with me in one way or another. You know, look, I'm really good about compartmentalizing this. You know, I lead a normal life. I don't dwell in the darkness. I don't, you know, I do regular guy things with my family. Ski down hills and hit balls with sticks and, you know, escape it, you know, in a lot of different ways. And have maintained what I think is a healthy level of, you know, mind and body. But there are certain things that will always stick with you. And one of them is when a guy brought his four-year-old child with him to a sting house in Fort Myers several years ago. And he wasn't going to involve the child in a sex act, but he was in charge of the child that day. And so he was going to put them off in a room with a video while he exploited another child, a 14 year old. And we saw him come up the driveway and the whole crew, I mean, these guys have worked with me in some of the darkest places in the world, you know, over seas, undercover and various investigations, you know, and everybody just gasped. And the guy walks in and I sit down and said, look, you know why you're here. I know why you're here. You brought your son with you and I'm not going to put him through that. So off you go. Some law enforcement people will meet you outside. And they did. And they took the child away. So How to Catch a Predator ended, of course, and then you transitioned into Takedown and you have your podcast, as you mentioned. Can you talk to us a little bit about how How to Catch a Predator ended? Because I think there is that infamous moment. So obviously there was a case in Texas where an assistant district attorney, a prosecutor, was caught online chatting with two different 13 year old boys. He never showed up. But the police in that case thought there was enough evidence to charge him with a crime. The crime is, in most states, committed with the chat online. They went to go arrest him. And as they were arresting him, he decided to take his own life. Later, they found child pornography on his computer. So you can do the math on that. Never want to see it happen. The police couldn't control it. I certainly couldn't control it. Yeah. Right. I would have preferred them arrest him at the DA's office the next day. That would have been more dramatic television. But this is what they decided to do. They didn't want him to destroy evidence. So they went to his house arrest him. He chose to do that. Now, we continued doing To Catch a Predator for a long time after that. We did several other investigations. There's this feeling online that that ended the show. We continued the show. I think, and I was there at the time, they made the decision to discontinue the show because it had become very expensive. And they realized that they could do extended versions and Predator Raw on MSNBC and make a lot of money without going out to shoot other investigations. And it had become very expensive because ABC tried to steal the show away. And there was a bidding war for the tech people who worked on the show. And in those days, it still required a lot of specialty work. Today, technology allows us to set these things up a lot easier, less manpower, and certainly not have to cost $600,000 per episode, which was crazy. Wow. So I think that had more to do with it than anything else, I'm pretty sure. So the chatter online is more of a misconception. It is. Because after Texas, we went on to do other investigations. Mm-hmm. And in those days, when we did an investigation, we would go there for however many days, and they would make two hours of television and put different characters in each of those hours. It had to be formatted for a network show. In streaming today, each guy has his own episode. Sometimes we combine them thematically, but most of the time, each guy has his own episode, which allows us to understand who this guy is, what he did, why he did it, if we can find out. Mm-hmm. And then we can understand what happens in the case. And so I think it's much more fulfilling, not only from a television production or storytelling standpoint, it's also more fulfilling to see justice take its course. And in the streaming world, you can do that. Now, we do a lot of versions of these stories for Fox News. We're talking about doing some stuff with Fox Nation. So we have a network presence, which is important. And we have the independence and the ownership of distribution and content that you need in this new media world. I mean, I've watched this develop over 44 years as a reporter. Yeah. You know, I started in 1981 as a television reporter in Lansing, Michigan. I was still in college. And so to see this go all the way to being 66, you know, it's been fascinating for me, and it's been fulfilling to ride the edge of technology here. You know, I've got to be the only guy my age in the world that's got a million point one TikTok followers. I mean, but it's a valuable asset. It's a valuable platform to share information. And the same goes with the YouTube channels. I mean, we talk about Roblox on the Have a Seed podcast, you know, we can end up with a million people paying attention to this. And not only is that gratifying from a journalistic business model, it's a million people who see how to protect their children online, which is arguably way more important than anything else. So how have you felt about the evolution of media over the last, even just the last 10 years, because it has shifted dramatically. I'm even seeing journalists who are on networks who now are leaving the networks to create their own independent channel. Why would I be with a network when I have my own network? I have True Blue. Yeah. And I'm very fortunate and blessed to have these opportunities. Yeah. So, you know, we've got every social media platform. We've got two podcasts. We've got a streaming network. We've got a streaming network of our own, where we produce other documentaries, too. We've got a sextortion documentary coming out in a couple of weeks that is just mind-boggling and a very important thing for parents to see. We've got other documentaries in the pipeline, too. So there's no limit to what we can do. It's really, you know, how many places I can be at the same time, which I'm trying to be as many as I can, including here with you. I was going to say, I appreciate you being here today. So let me ask you this, and feel free to be brutally honest, as a professional journalist and someone who is so highly respected in the space, and you've been doing this for decades with the evolution of media, what's your perception, or how does it make you feel when you see other other people like myself who don't have a professional background in journalism or anything like that talking about cases or seeing them spark up and cover different true crime cases or some of these people who I don't agree with are doing these things and they shouldn't be. But like, how does that make you feel given that this is your career? Well, look, I think it's the great democratization of media, right? It's allowed people to have access and it's part of our developing First Amendment, right? Everybody has a right to say and do what they think and feel and to share that. And it's up to the consumers out there to decide whether this is worthy of their consumption. And so it'll all shake out. I mean, you've done very well, you know, and you do a great job. Otherwise, you know, I wouldn't be here. My wife became a fan and then you and I met at CrimeCon and went from there. But, you know, obviously, there's some real horrible people out there who are putting crap out there that's not true. And you got to turn it out. I mean, a consumer will figure this out. There's a reason why retail stores go in and out of business. Consumers don't like to be fooled. And once they're fooled, you know, those people are done. Once they burn up, they're done. You have a loyal following because you produce content that is meaningful to people and they can relate to you. In your life, at your age, you speak to your demographic. You know, I've been blessed, and I hope you are too, that years down the road, when you're my age, that you continue to have that key demographic. I've been blessed to have that. I've got people who are 15 who follow me, and I got people who are 94 who follow me. And that's why it's important to have a presence on everything from Fox News to True Blue to podcasts to TikTok. Catch everybody. Everybody. All the different demographics. Right. Well, and I have to say, at CrimeCon, when you catch everybody, you catch everybody. You catch everybody. You catch everybody. You catch everybody. You catch everybody. You catch everybody. You catch everybody. You catch everybody. You were the star of the booth. We were going to convert it to the Chris Hansen booth. Everybody who was there to meet me was like, Chris Hansen's here. I think, look, and it goes to your point about, you know, people who are full of shit, you know, and just say whatever they want on these platforms. They get burned off. You know, the world's a self-cleaning oven, right? The crap gets swept off and burned up and swept away. It's done. So people who are sincere, people who have intellectual integrity, people who have energy to go tell a story that nobody else is telling it a way nobody else is telling it will survive in this. And that's what I've done. But I mean, you know, I, you know, I'd like to be able to sit here and tell you that at your age, I thunk this up and had a plan to execute it. Well, I had a natural curiosity and a drive and an amount of energy that maybe beat my colleagues. But it's that same drive and curiosity and knowing that what I'm doing, I think is important. And I think people respond to that. It's sincerity. And so, yes, there are parodies and South Park will do something. 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I've been saying that for years. And so I am so you're right. You're here and you can educate a little bit on that. So obviously, things have shifted. And I'm going to tell you a little bit more about Roblox. Roblox is a multi-level gaming platform upon which anybody from the age of five to one hundred and five can play games and also create games and communities. And Roblox is a multi-level gaming platform upon which anybody from the age of five to one hundred and five can play games and also create games. And Roblox has, in response to some of these criticisms, created age verification systems and facial recognition systems. And it does take part in mandatory reporting of inappropriate activity to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, NCMEC, as it's supposed to. But too often, I think these companies and Roblox is right at the top of the list, don't want to take those extra steps because extra steps mean limiting engagement. And when you are a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company, limiting engagement means limiting profits. And so they have a response ability to their users and to society in general to make sure the platform is as safe as it can make it. And I don't think, and many experts in this field, including those in law enforcement, don't think they're doing everything they can. And these victims go back years. In the Dangerous Games documentary, we did two hours, two different parts, and I've got a third on the way because this 764, this insidious, nihilistic hate group, is now a part of the game. And I think that's what's happening. Young content creator who himself was exploited on Roblox, became an advocate, tried to work with Roblox. What does Roblox do? Bans him. We're at PrimeCon this last time. We do a panel with the Louisiana Attorney General, lawyer for Schlepp. Schlepp gets somebody to make an account, and he shows me how to go on Roblox. And we watch as we're approached by a reporter who knew what we were doing, and banned the account. Really? Live. You can go to Have a See with Chris Hansen. I've heard, yes, I've heard of this happening. We do this. We used that presentation at CrimeCon in our segment, our latest Roblox segment on the Have a See with Chris Hansen. People need to see this. Yeah. It happens live on stage. Now, why is Roblox so attractive to predators? Because it is designed for kids in many ways. I look at the characters, you know, but then you dig a little deeper, and there are bathroom games, and there are bedroom games, and games that simulate violent acts that have torn apart our society, mass shootings. And again, Roblox says it tries to police these things and balance user freedom and privacy with a safe platform. But ask Roblox this. Why don't you let law enforcement conduct sting operations on your - Absolutely. - Why not? do that because they wouldn't have as many users exactly well and so just to circle back a little bit again for anyone who's listening who's a parent who doesn't know not only what roblox is but how these predators would then attempt to groom their child who's using it can you walk them through like the live chat feature and what that there's a live chat feature there's a friend feature there there have been limits put on some of these features by roblox right but still a kid can go into an area chat that can be approached by an adult unless the parent has absolutely prohibited this and that's why parents need to understand how roblox works because there are ways that parents can make this safer but still there are a lot of common areas on roblox and so if your child is approached and it can be somebody posing as a kid who's not a kid right i tell people all the time just because they say they're 15 years old doesn't mean they're 55 years old sitting in their underwear their mom's basement started by empty pizza boxes you can say whatever you want you don't know that person in real life you don't know that person right so then they have the conversation sometimes they take them over to discord where roblox has a big presence and can you explain a little bit about discord so discord is a public sewer essentially i mean they're gonna they're gonna get angry when i say this but but it's discord is a widely unregulated space where people can do all kinds of things viewing interactions not particularly well regulated law enforcement would suggest so now they go on there they have more freedom to have a conversation but roblox has a has a server on discord there's a tight relationship there and then depending on how the grooming process goes it goes to the cell phone and texting and all let's meet up and let's do this and let's do that we had a case during the early phases of the dangerous games investigation roblox investigation where a woman from texas reached out on tiktok and said you know i'm trying to get a hold of chris hansen's team because i caught my husband grooming a child on roblox my wife who monitors gabrielle monitors the the tiktok account very closely flags me and i said well we're gonna get on this track her down talk to her we go to harlingen texas where this takes place it turns out the wife caught the husband chatting with somebody who was 15 in california and they were clearly inappropriate he was grooming her she saw the text confronted him oh it's nothing it's nothing don't worry about it you're gonna ruin our whole family calls the cops totally betrayed the cops start investigating we find out about it all we go to harlingen interview the woman find the husband now at this point they're separated heading for divorce obviously because of what happened take him off in the parking lot of his workplace confront him with the tax i mean i had the tax his chat with the 15 year old girl the wife then conducts her own investigation goes online right like i always say there's nobody better than a housewife or a college girl to find stuff online they'll they'll they'll find it and gets a hold through her own investigation on social media facebook and whatnot finds who the girl is calls the mother enlists the mother she's shocked that this guy was grooming her daughter they give a full statement to the harlingen police department they get a warrant i get a call saying they're going to arrest him now i've already done the interview with him took him down the parking lot predator style done the interview with with with with the poor wife whose life is torn to pieces over this thing they've got a bunch of kids so then i said when are they going to arrest him well i had no time to get to harlingen i said do me a favor get the video on your cell phone she gets a video of him being arrested this whole thing is a segment within the dangerous games documentary wow and it was so organic and so powerful yeah that it drove the point home on so many levels one law enforcement's got to really be aggressive two you have to advocate your own case as a parent this woman made this case against her husband turned her life upside down financially emotionally the husband's family's all upset she's got to explain this to her kids and the dirtbag husbands gets locked up now she's got to figure out how she's going to manage this and put it all back together and work enough jobs to to to to feed her kids and keep them clothed unfortunately it's a it's a tight-knit family and they all pitch in here grandma's there and everything else but i mean that's a risk and now you understand from an organic level why sometimes spouses don't turn their their yeah worse halves in in these cases because they don't want to not everybody is equipped to do that yeah god bless this woman for it takes a lot of courage sure did a ton of blow up your life in order for the greater good right and now going back to discord and and i've only been on discord a little bit here and there in the past and to your point it was like a sewer i was like get me out of here i couldn't run away fast enough but to break it down even more simply for those listening could would you compare is it fair to compare it to like discord it's instant messaging it's almost as like what aol chat rooms were right it's a combination of chat rooms twitch gaming all of it all in one you can do right right there's all kinds of stuff and then ultimately to texting yeah now there's a lot of other apps i know because i have a seven-year-old son and he has the switch and he's doing all this and i like i'm like a helicopter parent looking at every single game turning off every single chat feature everything no friend request know this know that are there any other apps aside from roblox or and discord that stick out to you as big red flags i think they're all potentially dangerous i mean we've had cases horrifying cases that started on instagram right and you think instagram safe what could go wrong there well there are predators just looking just trolling saying there's something there could be some vulnerability there and they start looking watching if you're putting pictures of your uh potential model daughter in bathing suits up guess who's going to look at those and so you have to protect your kids you have to have you know an extra layer of common sense and and just awareness about it because it is everywhere and and you have to and you know we we talked for a minute earlier about the sextortion stuff going on and that to me i mean i've sat across too many parents whose children have killed themselves good parents good kids good homes professional people whose children got caught up in a moment they couldn't see their way out of and it speaks to my mantra which is you gotta tell kids that you're out here playing on the the super highway and stuff can happen yeah and stuff probably will happen and you're gonna make a dopey childlike mistake you will because that's what kids do when i was a kid that mistake didn't hold the consequences it does today you know you got your ass whooped when you got home because you you know you did something dopey the consequences are much more severe today and so you got to tell kids that you're out here and tell your kids that look if you do make a mistake and there's a likelihood that you may here are the rules but if you mess it up you need to come to me and i'm not going to beat you up over it together we will solve it we'll report it and we'll go to the police department and it's different now than it was 20 years ago 20 years ago not every police department had the wherewithal to go after these cases today they're excited to go after them they have the technology they have a squad they have people dedicated to this cause and they will to the best of their ability investigate these cases but what you don't want is a 15 or 16 year old kid who's embarrassed because they sent explicit pictures to somebody they thought was a hot girl who ended up being a nigerian con artist and now they're beating this kid up for 50 bucks every day on a gift card to say oh my god my world is over kids are so closely aligned with their social media presence they're so closely aligned with their social media presence it's a 30-minute crisis and even if it does get out there so what who cares yeah you're off to college in a year right nobody knows but it feels so much when you look at people i'm sure say critical things about you they say it about me hard to hard to believe because we're good people but we do we're good people who do good stuff right we're not evil people we do a job it's an we'll nitpick at you anyway we can't listen to it you got to be a stoic yeah you got to think about courage discipline wisdom justice those are the things you worry about in life and you have to apply those to everything you do or at least i think so and so if you think about it that way and shut out the noise and you need to share that with your kids yeah it doesn't matter that person's on x that person's on here that person's there they're not real they're not real and nobody gives a rat's ass what they say people are so consumed with themselves be yourself they don't care about what's happening with you right now you brought up something interesting you had mentioned when people are posting photos or videos of their 15 year old girl in a bathing suit right one of the things that i had touched on and i went into a big deep dive about a year ago on was people posting their children on the internet yeah i'm not a fan yeah and trying to make their children mini influencers if you will and getting this partnerships with pampers with this with that and when you look into it i know how it works with brand deals as i'm I'm sure you've explored as well. - Absolutely. - They want the analytics, they want your demographics. woman who showed that when she shared her analytics with a diaper company, I'm just going to say that, that the majority of her followers were men. The majority of the people saving her photos were men of her toddler-aged daughter. And Pampers still went forward saying, we're going to pay you for that. I have never seen CSAM, right? I've never seen it. I never want to see it. Yeah. But I know what it is. And I know people whose job it is to identify it, examine it, and prosecute these cases. And the same guys who watched that, the bad cop who had hundreds of images categorized, cataloged, is the same guy who's looking at that stuff. Exactly. Because that's fueling their desire. And if you think for one minute there isn't a link between viewing of CSAM and offending, then you're not in the room. Because there is definitely a link. People talk about, well, they're just looking at something. It's not that. No, no, no. They're going to offend. They will offend without question. Well, it's interesting, too. I had a forensic psychologist on when we were talking about this. And she has worked with so many pedophiles over the years. And she said, all they need is one image. They make up a voice for them. They make up this whole backstory. And they're saving these images. And with the brand deal, with that, too, it's like, they don't care because all they want is the exposure of their product within it. Right. To them, it's another click. It's another eye-opener. Exactly. And so what would your warning be to people listening who are posting their children? Protect your child. Would you put your child in a diaper and let them alone in the park? No. No. Would you let them crawl around the wall by themselves or an airport by themselves? No. So why would you put them out on the internet version of that? It's a don't do it. Could it be that important to show them on Instagram and get the likes? Yeah. I'm very cautious about posting. I mean, even though it's my job and I post stuff related to work. We post nice vacation photos with her. Adult children, we do a lot of stuff. But I even am careful about locations. I don't need everybody knowing where I am at or where my kids are, who my kids are. You're protecting your family. Exactly. And people need to take that same precaution. Let me ask you this. And it's a dark question. And I don't know if you know the answer. But what would you say, like, one out of every X amount of people is a predator? That's so hard. You know, people used to always ask, you know, how many predators are online at any given time? And we got focused on that. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't on this 50,000 number, which means nothing. It was just something that was out there in the sphere of discussion. You don't know. I mean, the internet is so ubiquitous. I mean, I'm sure somebody's got a percentage of humanity who thinks about this and then acts, does something evil. I don't know. But what I do know is every predator we catch, forever predator we catch, we've saved a child from being, if not more children. - Probably multiple. - From being offended. - Absolutely. - From being victimized. - So, okay, let's move into the movie of it all. Most of us picked up a bank years ago and never really looked back, right? But if you're still dealing with those unnecessary fees, it might be time to rethink that. And that's where Chime comes in. Chime is changing the way that people bank. They're not like traditional old banks who charge fees and gatekeep perks and rewards. Chime offers the most rewarding fee-free banking, all with no overdraft fees, no monthly fees, no minimum balance fees. You get 5% cash back on Chime Card in a category of your choice, like gas or groceries, and it's just the best. So join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to chime.com/serialistly. That's chime.com/serialistly. Sign up now, it only takes a few minutes. Chime is a FinTech, not bank. Banking services and Chime Card provided by Chime's bank partners, qualifying direct deposits required, terms and limits, apply, go to chime.com/disclosures for details. Because obviously, "Prime Time" is coming out with Robert Pattinson starring as you, which is crazy to think, I would imagine. What was it like getting that call? Not only that they were going to be doing a movie, but also that he was going to be playing-- - Well, we had heard, you know, obviously with all the different properties I have and all the platforms, some of the people who are involved in the management also tangentially have relationships in the Hollywood world. So we had heard that this was in the works. A couple months ago, they came out and said, "Hey, look, we're doing this. We'd like you to, you know, have some sort of, you know, consideration in terms of helping us with this." I haven't seen it, you know. - Did you sit in on any of the filming? - No. - Or work as a consultant or anything? - No. - So they put together their whole storyline-- - They did. - Just independently. - Correct. - Okay. - So I'm going to get a private screening in the next week or so. And then I'll be able to tell you whether I like it or don't like it and how dramatized it is. And my suspicion is that they used my name because it helps in a commercial enterprise. And until I see the full movie, you know, as a reporter, it's silly for me to talk about something that I haven't seen yet. So I'm going to see it. - Have you seen the trailer? - I've seen the trailer. - What are your thoughts on the trailer? - It looks dramatic. - Okay. - It looks very dramatic. - Okay. - But again, you know, I've been busy being the real Chris Hansen. So I don't have a lot of time to focus on the fake Chris Hansen in the movies. - You can't focus on Robert Pattinson cosplaying. - I mean, look, I know that, you know, he's a very popular actor. I know that the director is a popular guy. But I also have some questions, you know, what's Hollywood's motive here? We don't know, but I'll find out. And I'll promise I'll let you know. - I want the follow up. - Yeah, I'll do it. - You know, I'm kind of curious, I wonder why they wouldn't have enlisted you to come on board as, I don't know what the exact term would be like, but kind of like a consultant role as they're filming to be like, is this accurate? Are we having the proper representation of what actually took place in all of these years? - Well, we're fit to find out. - Yeah, all right. So when you got the call, not only that they were making the movie, but that he was going to be playing you, what was that like? Because he is an A-list star. - Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, obviously they want a commercial endeavor to succeed and they think this is the way it's going to succeed. You know, I didn't get to choose my own guy here. - Who would you have chosen? - That's a good question. And I knew it was coming and I should have had a better answer prepared for you. But I always thought, you know, I had discussions years ago about, I had crafted a script and I thought Dennis Leary would be it. - Oh. - That's a good guy to play me, depending on the age of it all. We are, by the way, just started, we signed a two book deal with Simon & Schuster for a Chris Hansen thriller series. - Congratulations. - And we're deep into that. So every day I've got a, is this the book Chris Hansen? And who has a different name in the book? Is this the fake movie Chris Hansen? Is this what I've really got to do today? - Who? - Who am I? Who am I today? - An identity crisis, just the meme with all the numbers going. - Existential crisis every morning. - Every morning to figure out where I've got to be. - Who is Chris Hansen? - Well, you know, I work with a wonderful writing partner named Joe Garner, who produces some of the podcasts. And I have such an incredible team. And I got to mention Kelly McClure, who you know from CrimeCon, who does all the work, the producing work for Takedown. But, you know, it allows you, and I've written a book before, I wrote a book about the predator experience 15, 16 years ago, I suppose. But it's really a great exercise in creativity to take all the things you set aside, all the ideas, all the things you wanted to express, but didn't have time to in the actual production of the stories. And I've got this great, you know, vault of creative stuff that's just ready to go into these books. So I'm very excited for it. - So aside from the books, True Blue, Take Down, your podcast, what else, what's next as if you don't have enough on your plate? - Well, you know, we explore a lot of potential documentaries. You know, the Sextortion, for instance. There's the, I cooperated in the I'm Chris Hansen documentary, which is more of a profile of me that's coming out right around the same time the movie is, just after the A24 movie. And so I have a lot of topics that interest me, you know? And so we get to those as we have time, but I probably got six or seven other documentaries in the works, either shooting or conceptually, or, you know, getting the write-ups ready to go. So it's, it's, it's a busy, you know, look, it's a great time alive, right? My kids are grown, everybody's working. You know, I've got a wonderful wife and I have time to do all this stuff. And so it, it really opens you up creatively and gives you a great deal of energy to go out and do this. And, and, you know, I'm a student of the world and I get to write a report about it every Thursday and every Wednesday and every Monday, every time these different shows go on. - Daily show, that's what we need, Chris. - Yeah, well, we may, you know, we may try that one day, but. - Yeah. Aside from the "Predator" and "Predator" piece of it and bringing them down, is there anything else like in the crime universe that you're interested in or cases right now that you're following? - So next up is fraud. - Okay. - Waste, mismanagement, theft. I've got some cases that blow your mind. And we're getting ready- - Can you give us a teaser? - Well, I think when you talk about systems that are set up in society so that, that the challenged, economically challenged people get a leg up on, you know, the EBT cards or the certain benefits, They're being abused across the country, in this state, in virtually every state. And I've got some people who have been undercover for months on this, who I've been working with. And what you're going to see on some of this fraud stuff is really just outrageous. You're going to be everywhere. To catch a fraudster. Ooh, to catch a fraudster. If you haven't trademarked it yet, you better do it fast. Yeah, I'm on it. Get the website, get the handle, do everything you need to do. Do it all. It's in process. Okay, so what out of all these projects that you have going on that you've done, what's been the most rewarding one for you? Well, they all are rewarding in different ways. I mean, obviously, the Takedown Predator franchise is very rewarding because we're creating dialogue and awareness that doesn't exist or doesn't exist at the level it should. We're preventing these guys from harming children. We're, I think, in some cases, helping law enforcement to realize we can do this. And we can partner. We can partner with you, me, and really make something that's compelling and sends a message to the community that we're not going to stand for this. And so we have more law enforcement agencies than ever before wanting to collaborate on these things. Have you ever worked or have you ever heard of Child Rescue Coalition? Yeah. So I work with them and I have a partnership with them. I work very closely with them. You do? Yeah. I was just going to say, everything feels like it's such an organic thing that was aligned so well. Oh, yeah. No, we love Child Rescue Coalition. In fact, I hosted their event this past year in Delray. Yeah. I've had Greg on the podcast. Oh, yeah. And so the technology where you can see the trade of child explicit material in real time is shocking. I was chatting with Greg today. When they pulled up that map for me and you see it just kind of light up like a Christmas tree, it's unbelievable. I did it on my podcast and we were very involved. We raised a lot of money for them this year. Oh, fantastic. Yeah, that feels like such a great partnership. Yeah, no. Great partnership. A lot of stuff going with them, too. Oh, okay. So can you let everybody know where they can find you? TrueBlue. T-R-U-B-L-U. Watch TrueBlue.com. That's where the Takedown Predator investigative series is. I think we're up to like 270 episodes so far. That's lots to binge, guys. Yeah, so get into it. We've got the podcast, Predators I've Caught, drops every Monday. And Have a Seat with Chris Hansen comes out Wednesday. The Takedown episodes drop every Thursday. Every Thursday. Never a miss. Three brand new pieces of content. We do content every week. The documentaries, Sextortion's coming out. I'm Chris Hansen's coming out. Fox News, Jesse Waters, we do a lot of work there. And To Catch a Fraudster. Coming soon. I don't think I missed anything. I love that. Did I miss anything? Well, and I'll put all the links in there. Yeah, I appreciate that. I do have a follow-up. Did you ever anticipate that your iconic lines would become as bold as they are where people have shirts made with them now? No, I never did. And it's funny because they have a seat. The seat line was basically a way to get control of the environment, especially in the early investigations where we didn't have law enforcement. Now, you know, we have a briefing with law enforcement. And, you know, sometimes law enforcement takes them into custody before I even get a chance to interview them. It's in an interview room at a sheriff's office. And that's fine because it's still a very compelling interview. Sometimes they come in and I get a chance to talk to them first. Now, if he gets fidgety or tries to run, he's grabbed. Yeah. He's handcuffed. And then I talk. But in the early days, we didn't have those options. It was either I get him to have a seat or he runs and he's gone. We couldn't chase him. Yeah. We weren't allowed to. So the have a seat, have a seat right over there, and the focus on the physicality of the room was critical. Yeah. And that was my way of controlling the situation. Well, even thinking back to when I used to watch How to Catch a Predator, like, you know how this looks. Or like, what's that in the bag? Yeah, what do you have in the bag there? Well, it was all developed organically. Yeah. We had one in front of us. We had one investigation in Ohio years ago. And a guy came in, and he was a bad guy. He had a court date the following Monday for sexually assaulting a young relative. He was there to assault a girl, and he was a short person, like dwarf. And he worked at a military base. So he comes in, and I said, you've got to hop up and have a seat. He goes, no, I'm good right here. I said, no. And I'm thinking. If he doesn't get in the stool, he's out of the camera shot because he was so short. So he hops up there, and then we have our interview right there. But all those little things behind the scenes, they're so challenging and darkly humorous. And yes, I mean, the dark humor of it is part of, I think, the popularity. And so, yeah, I lean into that. Of course I do. Well, I have to tell you, I not only am a fan, but I appreciate so much what you're doing as a parent, as just a human being, everything, all the work that you do. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. And thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having us in beautiful Orange County, California. I'm so glad you're here. You definitely have to come back once you see the movie. And we have to have a tea session. Yeah, I promise. Absolutely. OK. Thank you so much for this. Done and done. Awesome. Thank you, Annie.