Kenneth Chase, 61, thought he was meeting an 11-year-old girl for sex Saturday afternoon, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation met him with an arrest warrant instead, officials said.

Chase, a Gainesville resident, has been charged federally with enticement of a minor child for purposes of having sex, said Stephen Emmett, special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Atlanta division.

The FBI found Chase looking for sex with a minor in an internet chat room, and the investigation of Chase culminated in his arrest Saturday, Emmett said.

"That’s where a lot of these individuals will go to on the internet," Emmett said. "There are specific chat rooms that are geared to this type of behavior."

No child was actually involved in the investigation, Emmett said.

Emmett said there have been numerous arrests of this nature in the Atlanta area, and the numbers nationwide are growing.

"The numbers in Atlanta are higher certainly than we’d ever wanted them to be," said Emmett.

Chase is being held in the Atlanta city jail, which is the FBI’s pretrial detention center.