Law enforcement in Livonia arrested a Chicago-area high school maintenance worker after undercover investigators used AI-generated photos of a teenage boy to lure him. According to an affidavit from FBI Task Force Officer McKailey Scott, the operation was run by the Livonia Undercover Resistance to Exploitation Unit (LURE). An account on the queer-focused dating app Taimi used the name “Caleb” and an AI-generated image of a teenage-appearing male. After moving to WhatsApp, the suspect asked the persona’s age; when told 15, he allegedly replied, “Im interested” and “Im hard now.”
The investigators identified the man as Christopher Thomas Mertens by checking his phone number with Thomson Reuters CLEAR and running his face through Clearview AI. Over several days, Mertens exchanged sexually explicit texts with the persona and planned to drive to a meeting spot when he believed the boy’s parents were not home. Police used Flock to track his car and arrested him when he arrived. Mertens soon asked to speak to Scott and admitted everything, including that he worked at an Illinois high school; the complaint does not name the school.
The case is part of a broader trend. Police have used computer-generated child images for years—a Dutch children’s rights group created a virtual child called Sweetie in 2013—and agencies now also deploy AI-powered social media bots and age-regression tools in undercover work. At the same time, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has reported a sharp rise in generative AI child sexual abuse material, used for extortion, enticement, and harassment. Livonia police did not respond to a request for comment.