ST. AUGUSTINE, Florida — The St. Johns County Sheriff's Office has announced 38 arrests in two separate operations aimed at online child exploitation and at registered sex offenders who allegedly failed to follow Florida's reporting laws, in one of the largest child-safety enforcement announcements the county has made this year.

In the first operation, called Operation Prey No More, undercover detectives with the sheriff's Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) unit posed as children online, according to the sheriff's office. Fifteen men were arrested when they arrived at a meeting location allegedly expecting to have sex with a minor, the sheriff's office said. No child was involved at any point: the people the suspects believed they were communicating with were detectives.

How Operation Prey No More worked

The sheriff's office said the suspects arrived at the meeting location in different ways — by car, on foot and even on a scooter — and were taken into custody there. Among those named in the sheriff's release were Luis Velasquez Colindres, 43, Kevin Camara, 38, Caleb Underwood, 35, and Nathaniel Earl Jones Jr., 39. All of the men are accused, not convicted, and are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

One of those arrested was already out on bond following a similar arrest in Jacksonville, officials said — a detail that drew a sharp response from R.J. Larizza, the State Attorney for Florida's 7th Judicial Circuit, whose office will prosecute the cases. "They get out on bond and what happens? They show up in St. Johns County in another operation," Larizza said. "These folks don't quit and neither do we."

The operation was run with a long list of partner agencies, the sheriff's office said: the State Attorney's Office for the 7th Judicial Circuit, the FBI, the North Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Operation Light Shine, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, the Nassau County Sheriff's Office and the Port Orange Police Department.

Source: St. Johns County Sheriff's Office announcement

A detective with the sheriff's ICAC unit used the announcement to warn parents that online offenders do not fit a single profile. "The suspects can be anyone of any age. It can be your friend, it can be your neighbor, it could be anyone out there conversing in the world on the internet," the detective said.

Operation Final Match: 23 registered offenders arrested

In the second initiative, Operation Final Match, deputies arrested 23 registered sex offenders for failing to report their dating and gaming accounts, the sheriff's office said. Under Florida law, registered sexual offenders and predators must report their email addresses and internet identifiers, including dating and gaming accounts, and failing to report them is a felony.

The sheriff's office said its work is not finished. Deputies are still searching for two additional registered offenders, Richard Sawyer and Joshua Fulcher, who are wanted in connection with the compliance operation, and anyone who knows where they are is asked to contact CrimeStoppers.

Same announcement highlighted a three-hour manhunt

At the same announcement, deputies highlighted a separate arrest from Saturday night, November 7, in St. Augustine. A registered sex predator, Kendrick Newby, 24, allegedly forced a woman into a restaurant bathroom at knifepoint on U.S. 1 North, according to the sheriff's office arrest report. The woman fought her way out, and deputies say Newby removed his ankle monitor and fled, triggering a manhunt of about three hours involving a helicopter, K-9 units and drones before he was arrested in a residential front yard.

Court and prison records cited in local reporting say Newby was released from state prison on August 22 after serving a seven-year term for sexual battery and was serving 10 years of sex-offender probation. The sheriff's arrest report lists allegations including attempted armed sexual battery, armed robbery, kidnapping, aggravated assault and a probation violation; the charges are allegations and Newby is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Sheriff Robert Hardwick praised the woman who escaped: "We had a female who actually stood her ground. She fought her way out of this," Hardwick said.

Background and what happens next

St. Johns County, on Florida's northeast coast between Jacksonville and Daytona Beach, has run similar paired operations before. In an earlier cycle announced by the same sheriff's office, an undercover operation called Operation Safe Passage made 17 arrests while a compliance operation called Operation Unified Watch contacted 249 registered offenders and predators and made 19 arrests — a pattern officials say reflects how much of this enforcement now happens online, through the accounts and identifiers offenders are required by law to disclose.

The 38 new cases now move to the State Attorney's Office for the 7th Judicial Circuit for charging decisions and prosecution, and the accused men will make their first court appearances in St. Johns County. The sheriff's office says the search for Sawyer and Fulcher continues, and further arrests are possible. For the Punjabi and South Asian families who live across the Jacksonville–St. Augustine corridor, the announcement is a reminder from investigators that the risk to children in these cases sits inside ordinary chat, dating and gaming apps — which is why the compliance operation treated unreported accounts themselves as a felony worth arresting over.