More than 150 individuals have been arrested or are under investigation following a cross-country child exploitation probe that also led to the rescue of five children from sexual abuse.
RCMP announced Thursday that more than a million images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children have been seized as part of Operation Snapshot III.
The Canada-wide operation involved more than 40 police agencies and led to 343 criminal charges being laid.
Police said the charges range from sexual assault, luring, and the possession and distribution of child pornography.
“Internet-facilitated child exploitation is one of the most horrific types of crimes a police officer has to investigate,” Sgt. Mike Petrilli said during a news conference Thursday.
Speaking of the more than one million images and videos seized in the probe, Petrilli said: “These images are not simply children having a bubble bath. They are clearly children that are in a situation where they are being sexual assaulted.”
He said some of the images depict infants and toddlers.
Police said two of the children rescued are from British Columbia and the other three are from Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.
Officials described the distribution of child pornography as a “borderless crime” that requires police agencies from different provinces to work together to determine where the offences took place.
“There is no pattern to this in our country,” Petrilli said. “It’s in our large cities, in our rural area, in every province.”
Operation Snapshot III follows two previous operations: Operation Snapshot in 2012 targeted individuals in the Prairie and Northern regions of Canada, and Operation Snapshot II in 2013 focused on individuals in Atlantic Canada.
