Alex Rosen

Rosen founded Predator Poachers at the age of 19. As of 2021, the group's activity had led to arrests in 27 U.S. states. The operations conducted by the group generally follow the strategy of creating a fake account on a dating app, waiting for an adult to message the account and then quickly disclosing that the account in question belongs to an underage person. If the target continues to message the account, the chat is then usually followed by a staged, real-life meeting with the suspect.[1][2][3] "We drop our age immediately. We don’t give them any doubts as to how old we are," Rosen stated in an interview with Fox 40.[4] The organization is funded by membership subscriptions and merchandise sales on its website.[1]

Most of Predator Poachers' operations take place on Grindr, a LGBT online dating application. Grindr became closely associated with Predator Poachers' brand on its YouTube channel, whose banner featured an illustration of a smartphone displaying a Grindr conversation. In an interview with The Verge, Rosen stated that the that the reason why "we use Grindr as number one is because... I didn’t have pictures of underage girls on my phone," he told the organization. "I do have a little brother though, and I did have pictures of him on my phone." Rosen's response was echoed by a member of another sting operation group from TikTok, who said that Grindr was a better option than other applications.[1]

When asked about the opinion of law-enforcement officials who say that such matter should be left to police departments, Rosen said that "every single department is either going to say nothing or discourage it publicly, but we’ve seen that departments that discourage it publicly will work to prosecute our cases". Upon being interviewed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the topic in 2019, some law-enforcement officers stated that the phenomenon of predator hunters can create a new form of mob justice and engender chaotic situations that should be left to professionals.[5]

In April 2021, Rosen staged a meeting with online celebrity Bryant Moreland, who he alleged was messaging a minor on Instagram. The operation, which was recorded on video and published online, resulted in Moreland's YouTube account, which had over two million subscribers at the time, being removed from YouTube. Subsequently, Rosen's YouTube channel was also terminated.[6]

In June 2023, Rosen visited the house of COVID-19 expert Peter Hotez in Houston. The visit happened after Hotez declined to debate Democratic presidential candidate and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. During the encounter, which happened at the sidewalk of Hotez's home, Rosen asked Hotez why he had refused to debate Kennedy and whether he believed in "vaccine injuries". Hotez responded that he was still considering debating Kennedy and said "don't come to my house" before entering his home. Later that day, Hotez stated on social media that he was "stalked in front of my home by a couple of antivaxers taunting me to debate RFKJr."[7][8][9]

Previously, in June 2022, Rosen published a video of himself confronting Republican representative Dan Crenshaw at the Texas State Republican Convention, calling him a "World Economic Forum sell-out", until being stopped by security.[7][10][11][12] The confrontation also involved Right-Wing comedian Alex Stein, who called Crenshaw a "globalist RINO".[11][12]

In a social media post published prior to March 2020, Rosen called his followers to help cancel a drag queen story hour event at an Idaho library. "I don’t think that shit needs to be around kids, because kids are kids. They can’t decide what their preferences are at that young age," he stated when asked about the post.[1]

• Anti-vaccine activism
• To Catch a Predator
• Alex Stein