The Georgia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force recently concluded a months-long sting operation called Operation Interception, which had the goal of arresting individuals trying to have sex with children. Investigators posed as children on various dating apps to collect evidence against the predators before moving forward with the arrests over Super Bowl weekend. Among the 21 perpetrators captured was 32 year old Hi-Rez Studios employee Thomas Cheung, who currently works as the Community Specialist for Smite.
"Those arrested had sexually explicit conversations with whom they believed to be a child and most of those arrested traveled to meet a child for sex," said a press release from the task force. In Cheung's case, he was also arrested for "possessing computer electronic pornography, child exploitation, and computer child exploitation online," according to arrest records. Cheung's arrest occurred on January 30.
While some gamers may be unfamiliar with Cheung, others may recognize him from his Twitch streams. In addition to being an employee at Smite developer Hi-Rez Studios, Cheung is also a partnered Twitch streamer, though it seems likely that Twitch will drop him and possibly even ban his channel depending on what happens with the case.
Twitch has been criticized in the past for being unwilling to outright ban people, even those considered especially toxic by the community. One recent example of this is MrDeadMoth, who was heard on stream hitting his pregnant wife, apparently in front of their children. Twitch's decision to unban MrDeadMoth was met with widespread outcry, and the game streaming service eventually decided to reverse its decision and once again ban his account.
Of course, the difference in this situation is that Cheung's conduct wasn't on Twitch, so it's hard to say if it will take any action against him or not. Considering the severity of the allegations levied against Cheung, though, it seems unlikely that Twitch will stay affiliated with him for much longer.
At the time of this writing, neither Twitch nor Hi-Rez Studios have issued a comment on the situation.
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