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Police departments across the country have begun creating profile pages on MySpace in an effort to collect information about and deter predators, but MySpace has discovered that some of the profiles are fake.

At least 16 police departments appeared to have created profile pages, but USA Today discovered that at least six of those pages were hoaxes. So far, MySpace has closed pages claiming to belong to police departments in New York, Virginia, New Jersey and Florida.

Departments in Newton, N.H., Smithville, Ohio, Haverhill, Mass., Newburyport, Mass., and Miami-Dade, Florida have all confirmed that they have actual profile pages on the social networking site.

Recently, MySpace began encouraging police departments across the country to maintain a presence on the site in order to collect information about child predators.