How did To Catch a Predator start, according to Chris Hansen?

Chris Hansen said a Dateline report with the International Justice Mission, which caught a Cambodian brothel near Phnom Penh selling children and led to 37 girls being rescued, pushed him toward investigating predators at home. He then teamed up with Perverted Justice, a volunteer group that posed as children online, and combined its decoys with NBC's ability to wire a house. The first sting, in March 2004 at a house in Bethpage on Long Island, drew 17 men in two and a half days, including a New York City firefighter.

• Hansen says the Cambodia report aired as Children for Sale, and his crew returned four years later to check on the girls.
• Hansen traces his hidden-camera approach to a 1987 Detroit series built on the Chambers Brothers drug gang's own videotapes.

▸In their words

“What if I've just blown 50K of the network's money?” Chris Hansen · at 6:13 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Shawn Ryan Show (2026-10-26). Read the whole episode summary →

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