OPP charge 60 people in Ontario-wide child porn probe

Ontario Provincial Police displayed an animated map showing more than 7,000 unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that were gathered over a 180-day period.

Sixty people are facing close to 250 charges, including three local men, following an Ontario-wide police investigation into Internet child exploitation.

In the fight to protect children from online predators, the OPP had a clear message Thursday morning for those who make, distribute and access child pornography.

“Those who commit these monstrous crimes against children, the provincial strategy is committed to hunt down predators and reduce the threat they pose to our communities,” says OPP Chief Superintendent Don Bell.

That strategy looks to protect kids online by linking police forces across Ontario and co-ordinating their crackdown efforts. Over the past few weeks police have been conducting a major investigation.

“This is one of the largest coordinated efforts of its kind in the province,” says OPP Detective Staff Sargent Frank Goldschmidt.

Last week police started arresting people. On Thursday representatives from 27 agencies came together to announce their findings.

“We did a province-wide sweep in the last three days and we arrested upwards of 60 some odd people and somewhere of 90 odd search warrants for child pornography,” says Inspector Scott Naylor with the OPP Sexual Exploitation Unit.

Combined there are close to 250 offences. So far police have identified 14 victims.

“Every image of child pornography represents a child victim, every trading or transmission of that image represents a re-victimization of that child,” says Bell.

These charges are wide ranging. They include making, accessing and distributing child pornography. Some people also face charges of sexual assault, sexual interference and luring.

“This is a population based problem offence, so the more people you have the more people that you are going to have offending,” says Naylor.

Police say in many of the arrests a large amount of drugs and weapons were also seized. Police also wanted to be clear these kinds of child sex crimes don’t just happen in urban areas.

“We would be naive to think that we are immune from this activity and certainly Barrie has had involvement with this type of investigation throughout the years,” says Inspector Mark Scheffer with Barrie Police.

Three people from our region were among those caught in the sweep. They are Justus Udell from Collingwood, Ebrahim Patel of Whitchurch-Stouffville and Jacques Comte of Huntsville – a local school janitor that CTV News first reported on two weeks ago.

Police say the investigation is ongoing and police say they expect more charges to be laid and more victims to be identified in the days to come.

You can read the full OPP release on the charges here.