A mother has contacted police because she believes a man has been using Facebook to contact boys in the Puget Sound area in the state of Washington. So far, police say the man has not committed a crime so his identity cannot be revealed but his Facebook stats are definitely creepy, to say the least. He has hundreds of friends on the social network and most of them are young boys. Over 60 of them are from the Western Washington area where the worried mother resides.

Dee Johnson discovered that her 12-year-old son had added the 29-year-old man in question while she was monitoring his Facebook page. Johnson routinely checked in on her son’s Facebook page to ensure that it was safe — after all, children under the age of 13 are breaking Facebook’s terms of service. It’s still not uncommon to see many younger users across the site regardless.

While Johnson was on her son’s account, the man began to Facebook chat with her. His persistence set of alarms and Johnson checked out his profile. She immediately knew it was someone who shouldn’t be friends with her son and began investigating the man further.

“I had to walk away from the computer and try to calm down for a few minutes and not let myself throw up or over react,” she said.

It was discovered that the man, who lives in Italy, uses an English translating program to find and connect with young boys. He looks through their friends lists and mention names of the boys’ friends in order to gain trust. He also looks for anything that would help make the boys feel safe, like mentioning places in their photos or talking about school and their parents.

Commander Sue Shultz of the Bainbridge Island Police Department said this is common behavior for predators of this nature. They coerce victims by “convincing them they are a friend, that they are willing to listen, that they care about them. They’re supportive when the child maybe feels that no one else in their life is supportive.”

The man is currently under investigation by the FBI Cybercrimes Unit and Bainbridge Island Police, but he’s checked out clean so far. He did send one disheartening message to a boy asking him if he would like to visit Italy. The message read, “Would you like to come to Rome come see Italy but it cost a lot of money.” Still, that’s not enough to get him behind bars.

Children are an easy target on Facebook. They often have accounts without their parents knowledge and are quick to trust strangers. There are plenty of stories of pedophiles contacting children on Facebook, like the man who chatted with an 11-year-old girl and tried to meet her at a YMCA or the man who tried to solicit sex with a 12-year-old over the social network. These stories are only warnings for parents to keep an eye on their child’s online activity.