Officers plan to use a nearly half-million dollar grant from the Department of Justice to create a regional task force, focusing their efforts on people who use computers to solicit children.

“The Internet has made the world a smaller and easier place for people to communicate, but with the convenience of the Internet comes a new, more private, more anonymous environment for predators to reach children,” Anna Mills Wagoner, a United States attorney, said.

But officials at the Guilford County Sheriff's office want to make it harder on those criminals.

“We're going after the people who go after our children,” Sheriff B.J. Barnes said.

With a $475,960 grant from the Department of Justice, Sheriff Barnes established the Piedmont Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

“[It] will enable us reach out and touch some of these predators that are going after our children,” Barnes said.

The task force will include sheriff's officers from Forsyth, Randolph, Davidson, Rockingham and Alamance counties. Money from the grant will buy equipment and train those officers on how to fight child predators.

“We're going to provide them with laptops, we're going to provide them with computer programs, we are going to provide them with GPS to track these folks, we are going to provide them with the training,” Barnes said. “We are also going to provide them with retina scanners to deal with them once they've been caught.”

Officers in Guilford County have had a lot of success tracking down online predators. Now they want to help the surrounding counties do the same.

“We're warning them, we're telling you. If you want to try to victimize our children, we are going to be there to find you. You don't ever know who you’re going to be talking to,” Barnes said.

Two other agencies in the state also got grant money, the State Bureau of Investigation and Charlotte Mecklenburg Police.