Federal agents served a search warrant on a registered sex offender in Oak Harbor earlier this year based on a tip from an undercover officer in another country, according to a report from Homeland Security.

On July 1, the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged the suspect, 32-year-old Tevin Trego, in federal court with a single count of possession of child pornography.

The report by a special agent with Homeland Security Investigation states that Trego was a registered sex offender who was released from custody and living in Oak Harbor. He was convicted in South Carolina in March 2024 of sexual exploitation of a minor in the third degree.

A 2022 press release from the sheriff’s office in Lexington, South Carolina states that Trego was one of 31 men caught in an online sting operation targeting potential sexual predators who were trying to contact children for sexual activity.

In the current case, a member of a foreign law enforcement agency was using the Kik Messenger platform to impersonate a 12-year-old girl to find suspects seeking to exploit minors over the internet.

In September 2024, a Kik user, later identified as Trego, messaged the undercover officer, acknowledging that he thought she was a child and asking sexually explicit questions, according to the agent’s report. He claimed to be a 35-year-old man in Germany.

Trego then sent the undercover officer a pornographic image of a girl estimated to be between 10 and 12 years old, the report states.

In addition, Kik employees sent a tip to the National Center of Missing and Exploiting Children alleging that Trego sent two pornographic images of children to another Kik user, the agent wrote. One of the images depicted a real child while the other was AI-generated, the report states.

The agents served a federal search warrant at Trego’s home on April 1. He allegedly admitted to receiving and sending child sexual abuse materials through Kik, according to court documents.