From Catching Predators to Teaching Kids How to Stay Safe Online
Consider Before Consuming
Fight the New Drug
4.7 • 762 Ratings
🗓️ 13 August 2025
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mike Lemon is the founder of Cyber Safe School and a former Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) investigator. After decades spent tracking down online predators, he now dedicates his work to helping parents, educators, and students prevent online exploitation, especially sextortion. In this episode, Mike explains how predators are targeting youth, why sextortion cases are rapidly increasing, the role of AI in these crimes, and what families can do to protect kids in today’s digital world.
Episode Resources:
- Article: Why Financial Sextortion Is Targeting Teens and Spreading Fast
- Podcast: Consider Before Consuming Ep. 138: Shannon and John
- Newsletter: Cyber Safe School
- Facebook Group: Cyber Safe Families
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Mike Lemon is a former Internet Crimes Against Children Investigator and the founder of CyberSafe School, |
| 0:16.1 | a program dedicated to helping families and schools navigate the dangers kids face online. After decades |
| 0:21.9 | in law enforcement, working on child exploitation cases, Mike now focuses on prevention, equipping parents, |
| 0:29.6 | educators, and students with the tools to stay safe. In this episode, Mike breaks down how predators |
| 0:35.6 | are targeting youth, how AI is making sex |
| 0:38.1 | distortion even more dangerous, and what families can do to protect kids in today's digital |
| 0:42.2 | world. |
| 0:42.9 | With that, let's jump into the conversation. |
| 0:45.3 | We hope you enjoy this episode of Consider Before Consuming. |
| 0:50.1 | Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining us today on Consider Before Consuming. |
| 1:01.8 | Can you start by telling us a little bit about your professional background, particularly your time in law enforcement to really lead us into this conversation? |
| 1:08.8 | Sure. So I've been in the law enforcement or internet crimes against children world since the mid-90s. |
| 1:11.7 | Started in 96 with the Bollinger Green Police Department here in Kentucky. It had patrol for about six years. I was in a pretty high |
| 1:17.8 | drug area, so I made a lot of drug arrest and really got into the investigative side of things. |
| 1:22.5 | It really kind of sparked my fire. Not just, for police, a lot of times we just kind of show up, fix problems, |
| 1:28.2 | and go to the next call. But I really enjoyed the kind of digging in and kind of figuring things |
| 1:33.6 | out in the investigative side. And so that's really what I want to do is be an investigator. And in |
| 1:38.7 | 2002, I was, it wasn't promotion, but I was selected as an investigator and pretty soon became their |
| 1:45.3 | internet guy, not because I really wanted to, but really because nobody else wanted to. |
| 1:50.9 | So I was a newest detective. They're like, who's going to start doing these? And they're like, |
| 1:54.1 | nobody, okay, Lemmon, you get it. And so at first, it was more kind of counterfeit checks, |
| 1:59.4 | credit cards, that type of stuff. |
... |
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