York Regional Police say 41 people have been arrested in connection with a large-scale child pornography investigation that spanned 17 countries.
The police service’s investigation, dubbed ‘Project Hydra,’ began in April 2014 after police say they received information from the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre about images of child pornography that were uploaded to the Internet from a home in York Region.
After executing a search warrant at the residence, police say they discovered it was a young person who had put the images online.
“The young person advised investigators that they had been chatting and sending and receiving child pornography with unknown people throughout the world via popular social networking websites and private chat rooms,” York Regional Police Insp. Tim Kelly told reporters during a news conference in Aurora Wednesday.
“Investigators had learned that the young person had been a victim of child exploitation and had been coerced into providing self-exploitive images to people online.”
From there, investigators say they contacted the administrators of a site involved and began to identify more suspects and victims worldwide.
In partnership with several other law enforcement agencies, including the RCMP, FBI, Interpol, and the OPP, York Regional Police say 110 charges have been laid across North America, including possession, distribution and accessing child pornography.
In Canada, 17 suspects were charged in connection with the investigation and 63 criminal charges were laid. According to police, seven of the suspects are from York Region and their ages range from 12 to 44.
Nineteen victims, including two from Ontario, were identified in ‘Project Hydra’ but investigators say they are still diligently working to track down others.
“While analyzing the sexual abuse images in videos, investigators found the victims ages ranged from infancy to teenage years,” Kelly said.
“The abusers appear to be people that the victims trusted or online predators that coerced the victim into creating child sexual abuse materials.”
Police say a parallel investigation that was launched in New Brunswick has led to the arrest of a 24-year-old Moncton man, who police believe may have victimized more than 2,000 people from around the world.
RCMP in New Brunswick allege the man would lure boys between the age of 10 and 16 by pretending to be a teenage girl.
Police say the suspect would contact the victims through online video chats and would use a video of a girl which appeared to be live. The suspect allegedly convinced the boys to undress and perform sex acts, which were then taped and distributed through the internet.
While York Regional Police were unable to confirm more details of the RCMP investigation, they said suspects often mask their identities online to lure children.
"People will utilize different images that they find throughout the internet and utilize different profiles that they'll be able to say, 'I am a young 13-year-old female,'" Det. Mark Van Wolde told reporters.
