Dozens of Canadians arrested in global child pornography investigation

Operation H was launched out of New Zealand in October 2019. Shortly after its conception, the team was alerted by an Electronic Service Provider which had discovered a large number of subscribers sharing what is described as “some of the most graphic and violent child sexual abuse material online.”

In October 2019, the team reached out to RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Crime Centre (NCECC) with information about a secure cloud storage site containing “the most horrific child sexual abuse material” shared across 90,000 online accounts within New Zealand and many more around the world.

Collaboration between the two countries resulted in arrests across eight Canadian provinces over the past two years.

The provinces are: Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan.

The NCECC is the central point of contact for investigations related to online sexual exploitation of children within Canada or internationally when the victim or offender is Canadian.

The centre has a team of “victim identification specialists” trained in a variety of techniques such as forensic image and video analysis.

These heinous acts may seem extremely scarce, however reality — according to investigators — is that such propensities are more commonplace than some may realize. Experts say child predators can be coworkers, neighbours, priests, daycare managers, and bartenders — many of whom are masters at hiding their compulsions.

Fearing repercussion, their desires are satiated within the confines of encrypted chat-rooms, servers, onion websites etc.

In the fiscal year 2020/21, NCECC received 52,306 total reports, complaints, and requests for assistance with online child sexual exploitation content — a 510% increase from 2013/14.

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) launched its own investigations in April 2020 as a result of Operation H, as some of the identified accounts were linked to Vancouver residents suspected of viewing and or sharing child pornography.

The VPD investigations led to the arrest of East Vancouver resident Kristjon Olson, 40.

The approval of 26 criminal charges against Olson has been confirmed by the BC Prosecution Service. The charges include making, distributing, and possessing child pornography; exposing; extortion; communicating with a person under the age of 16 for a sexual purpose; invitation to sexual touching; and breaching court orders.

According to VPD the alleged crimes occurred between January 2019 and June 2020 and the alleged victims lived in Canada and the United States at the time.

“Online child exploitation cases are some of the most complex and disturbing for police, in part due to their digital nature and because the victims are often located around the world,” said Sgt. Steve Addison, VPD.

“Detectives from the Vancouver Police Department’s Internet Child Exploitation Unit worked for nearly two years to gather evidence and secure criminal charges in this case, which involved child sexual abuse material.”

Reid Small is a BC-based reporter for the Western Standard

rsmall@westernstandardonline.com

Twitter.com/reidsmall