The RCMP says 47 Canadians have been arrested in eight provinces, and 12 sexually exploited children have been rescued in Canada, as part of an international investigation into cyberpedophilia.
Posted at 1:10 p.m.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) says 186 charges have been laid in the country so far as part of this international investigation, dubbed “Operation H”, initiated by the New Zealand Ministry of the Interior.
RCMP say arrests in Canada have been made in eight provinces over the past two years, but add that the investigation is ongoing.
The Canadian federal police say that the investigation began in New Zealand in the fall of 2019, when the authorities of this country were alerted by an electronic service provider. This provider had discovered that tens of thousands of subscribers were sharing “some of the most shocking and violent child sexual abuse content online”, said a statement from the New Zealand Ministry of the Interior.
New Zealand authorities say some 90,000 accounts have been identified as having or sharing cyber child sexual exploitation material.
The RCMP says that in Canada, the 47 arrests were made in Alberta, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan.
In Toronto, police said they arrested and charged six men, for a total of 18 offenses, including some related to possession, access and distribution of child pornography. Investigator Justin Vander Heyden of the Sex Crimes Unit said Wednesday that one of the defendants has since been convicted and sentenced to prison, another has died and the other four are still in the lurk. subject of legal proceedings.