Livonia Police Used AI-Generated Teen Photo, Clearview AI and Flock in Sting, 404 Media Reports
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Police in Livonia arrested a suspect after posing as a 15-year-old with an AI-generated photo, then used Clearview AI and Flock to identify and track him, 404 Media reported.
Police in Livonia arrested a Chicago-area high school maintenance worker after investigators posed as a 15-year-old boy using an AI-generated photo, then used facial recognition and Flock to identify and track him, 404 Media reported on October 16, 2026. The outlet, working with the court-records outlet Court Watch, based its account on an affidavit written by McKailey Scott, the department's FBI Task Force Officer. The affidavit contains allegations, not findings, and this article relies on 404 Media's description of it. Flock was part of the toolkit; our Flock tracker follows that network.
How the sting worked
According to 404 Media's account of the affidavit, the investigation was run by the Livonia Undercover Resistance to Exploitation Unit, known as LURE, which identifies and prosecutes child sex offenders. Scott set up an account on the dating app Taimi using "an AI generated image of a teenage-appearing male" with the name "Caleb" and no age listed on the profile.
An unknown user messaged "Caleb," and the conversation moved to WhatsApp. When Scott, posing as Caleb, said he was 15, the man indicated sexual interest, according to the affidavit as described by 404 Media. For days the two exchanged sexually explicit text messages, and the man made plans to drive to meet Caleb on his day off, believing Caleb's non-existent parents were not home.
The tools used to find and track him
404 Media reported that the investigator used a combination of tools, including checking the man's phone number using Thomson Reuters CLEAR and running images of his face through Clearview AI to identify him as Christopher Thomas Mertens. Police then used Flock to look up and track Mertens' car and see that he was driving to the meetup spot. He was also texting Caleb the entire time to say he was on the way and when he arrived. When he got out of the car, Livonia police took him into custody.
Two hours after he was booked, Mertens told jail attendants that he wanted to speak to Scott, the report says. When Scott arrived, Mertens admitted everything, including that he works at a high school in Illinois, according to the account. The complaint does not say which school. Mertens has been arrested, and nothing in 404 Media's report indicates a conviction.
A growing police tactic
404 Media noted that investigators have generated images of children for years. One of the earliest examples was Sweetie, a computer-generated child developed in 2013 by the Dutch children's rights organization Terre des Hommes and used to talk to men online. The outlet also reported that police departments at the U.S. border use AI-generated online personas designed to interact with and monitor protesters and activists, according to documents it obtained.
It cited other recent cases. A man in Connecticut was charged with enticing a minor and criminal attempt to commit risk of injury to a child after soliciting an undercover officer who used what was reported as "age regression technology" to appear as a 14-year-old in videos. A 45-year-old man was arrested after investigators used AI-generated images of children to catch him distributing child sexual abuse material, and he was recently sentenced to 12 years in federal prison, per 404 Media.
The technique also appears in civil litigation. In 2024, New Mexico sued Snapchat after investigators set up a fake account that used AI-generated images of children; according to the New Mexico Department of Justice, the platform allegedly recommended that account to dangerous accounts.
Why it matters
The case sits where two developments meet. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has reported a massive rise in generative AI child abuse material, with criminals using it to extort and entice children and children using it to bully and harass other children, 404 Media reported. In this case, according to the affidavit as described by 404 Media, police used an AI-generated persona, face search and Flock in their investigation.
Livonia police did not respond to 404 Media's request for comment. The report does not say whether the department has a written policy governing AI-generated images of minors in stings, or what oversight applies to its use of Clearview AI and Flock.