Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed the lawsuit against Snap Inc. Thursday in state court in Santa Fe. In addition to sexual abuse, the lawsuit claims the company also openly promotes child trafficking, drugs and guns.

Last December, Torrez filed a similar lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, saying it allows predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex on its platforms. That suit is pending.

Snap’s “harmful design features create an environment where predators can easily target children through sextortion schemes and other forms of sexual abuse,” Torrez said in a statement. Sexual extortion, or sextortion, involves persuading a person to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make the images public unless the victim pays money or engages in sexual favors.

“Snap has misled users into believing that photos and videos sent on their platform will disappear, but predators can permanently capture this content and they have created a virtual yearbook of child sexual images that are traded, sold, and stored indefinitely,” Torres said.

In a statement, Snap said it shares Torrez’s and the public’s concerns about the online safety of young people.

“We understand that online threats continue to evolve and we will continue to work diligently to address these critical issues,” the company based in Santa Monica, California, said. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our trust and safety teams over the past several years, and designed our service to promote online safety by moderating content and enabling direct messaging with close friends and family.”

According to the complaint, minors report having more online sexual interactions on Snapchat than any other platform, and more sex trafficking victims are recruited on Snapchat than on any other platform.

Prior to the lawsuit, New Mexico conducted a monthslong undercover investigation into child sexual abuse images on Snapchat. According to Torrez’s statement, the investigation revealed a “vast network of dark web sites dedicated to sharing stolen, non-consensual sexual images from Snap,” finding more than 10,000 records related to Snap and child sexual abuse material in the last year. This included information related to minors younger than 13 being sexually assaulted.

As part of the undercover investigation, the New Mexico department of justice set up a decoy Snapchat account for a 14-year-old named Heather, who found and exchanged messages with accounts with names like “child.rape” and “pedo_lover10.”

Snapchat, the lawsuit alleges, “was by far the largest source of images and videos among the dark web sites investigated.” Investigators also found Snapchat accounts that openly circulated and sold child abuse images directly on the platform.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – With temps still in the 90’s, a lot of us aren’t even close to turning off those A/C units. That means your electric bill could still be hurting your pocket book every month.

Now, there’s a chance your bill could be even higher. 

Nothing is official yet, but you may have already gotten a pamphlet in the mail from PNM.  

A spokesperson with the company says the pamphlets and other outreach methods like social media posts are to inform customers of a possible rate increase. But that doesn’t mean your bill is going up next month. 

According to a PNM spokesperson, the company filed a 2025 rate request with the New Mexico Public Regulations Commission. 

PNM says this is just the first step in a yearlong process. 

Any rate adjustment has to be approved through the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. The commission will hold a public process to review the rate request and decide on a final rate adjustment. 

PNM says the proposed rate change will be applied over two phases in mid-2025 and January 2026. 

The average monthly increase is projected to be $11.12 a month and $12.48 per month in January 2026. 

KOB 4 asked PNM customers what they thought about this proposal. 

“Everything just keeps going up, everything, everything just keeps going up. We don’t need an increase in electricity. We just got an increase in water bill, so now electricity and next will be the gas bill,” said Betty Pena, a PNM customer.

PNM issued the following statement on the possible rate change and the process of getting it changed:

“We are committed to keeping customers informed of any potential rate changes as we work through this year-long process. We sent all customers notices of the rate request, posted the rate request on our social media channels and our customer website. Additionally, any rate adjustment requires approval from the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission which will hold a public process to review the rate request and determine a final rate.”

The company says it held off on rate increases through COVID-19 as long as it could. 

The last time PNM filed for a rate increase was 2022. For more information about the 2025 rate request, click here.