ATLANTA ­-- Two Forsyth County residents, one of them a 73-year-old man, were arrested this week as part of a statewide child pornography sting.

According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Jerry Griffin and 22-year-old Thomas Lagomasino were among 18 people charged under the Computer Pornography and Child Exploitation Prevention Act of 2007.

The GBI’s child exploitation and computer crimes unit and the Georgia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force coordinated the three-month investigation known as Operation MasqueRAID, which involved executing 44 search warrants in 31 counties Monday.

Authorities were looking for “evidence of distribution of child pornography using the Internet,” according to a news release from the GBI.

The targets, according to the GBI, were the “most prolific offenders of child pornography laws."

As of Wednesday night, the GBI reported that 595 digital devices had been seized.

The suspects arrested Monday ranged in age from 18 to 80. Most of them lived in north Georgia. According to the GBI, more arrests are likely.

The operation, which began in July, involved GBI agents and local and federal Georgia ICAC Task Force affiliates detecting pornographic images of minors being shared online and resulted in the arrest of anyone who “possessed, produced or distributed images of child pornography."

The task force made 198 arrests in 2013 and has made more than 1,300 arrests since its inception in 2002.