Online exploitation probe in Norway led to arrest of Brandon man accused of making child pornography
Norwegian police allege Manitoban exchanged abuse material with man in their country
WARNING: This story contains details about child pornography and sexual abuse.
The recent arrest of a Manitoba home daycare operator and foster parent accused of making child pornography was the direct result of an investigation by Norwegian law enforcement, who alerted Canadian police the man might be actively abusing children.
Brandon police announced earlier this month they arrested a 37-year-old man now facing several charges related to the creation and distribution of sexual abuse material of young children in his care.
He was arrested at his home in the southwestern Manitoba city. Six children were at the residence at the time.
Norway's national police service said they initially warned Canadian authorities children might be in danger, after they detained a man who allegedly exchanged photos and videos with the Canadian over encrypted messaging platforms freely available to the public, like Telegram and Kik.
Police prosecutor Jeanette Svendsen said that includes material with a child who seemed to be about early preschool age. She said the Canadian had written in a message last fall the child was two years old, but that Norwegian police don't know their actual age.
The Norwegian man has pleaded guilty to possessing abusive material and being complicit in the rape of a child younger than 14.
"We work with this kind of material, videos, pictures every day," Svendsen said. "But it's not often we see communication and pictures and videos of ongoing physical abuse of children."
The Norwegian man — who has been collaborating with police — was arrested in the outskirts of Oslo on Jan. 29, based on tips by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, a U.S. non-profit organization.
Svendsen said police found messages between the two men going back at least four or five months after they seized his phone.
"He had communication with several people," she said. "Same kind of communication about abusive material, about abuse of children."
Svendsen said Norwegian police are working to identify the other people and map out the man's network, though they don't believe they were part of a group. Interpol has also been notified about the case.
Brandon police have confirmed the original tip leading to the arrest came from Norwegian authorities through the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Crime Centre.
The Brandon man is charged with several crimes related to the possession and distribution of child pornography, including three counts of sexual assault and another three related to the touching of children under the age of 16 for a sexual purpose.
The charges stem from incidents going back to June. The 37-year-old also faces one charge of assault related to an incident alleged to have happened anywhere from December 2023 until earlier this month.
Brandon police Chief Tyler Bates said at a news conference just over a week ago that there may be other victims in addition to the six children who were at the man's home at the time of the arrest.
"This case is special, because we have reason to believe that our investigation may have helped to prevent new sexual abuse against children," Svendsen said. "This makes our work meaningful."
International collaboration
Cpl. Gord Olson with the Manitoba RCMP internet child exploitation unit said they deal with cases involving law enforcement outside Canada on a regular basis.
He said RCMP recently arrested a man in his 60s in the Newton, Man., area whom police have accused of hosting chat rooms where people collected and traded sexual abuse material. The arrest was a result of collaboration with U.S. partners, Olson said.
"We deal with the United States a lot. We deal with the U.K. a lot," he said.
"We share this information back and forth, because it's a priority to help these children in need that may not be able to speak for themselves, with these horrible acts going on."
Olson said it's become increasingly hard to crack down on online child abuse, as perpetrators become more "tech-savvy," hiding their activities by using tools like the encrypted messaging services used by the Norwegian.
The Newton case also involved the use of such services, he said.
'Abdication of responsibility'
"Apps like Snapchat, Instagram, the American-based ones, they are obligated under U.S. law if they find some sort of child sexual abuse material on their system, they're obligated under law to report that," Olson said.
Applications such as Telegram and TeleGuard aren't necessarily hosted in the U.S., so those laws don't apply to them, he said.
"It takes a lot more work."
Lloyd Richardson, director of technology at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, said encrypted messaging services lean strongly toward protecting privacy at all costs, at the expense of safeguarding children from harm.
"There's been sort of abdication of responsibility," he said. "Companies do very little about it. They make the excuse that, 'Well, this is an encrypted space. We can't do anything to detect images here,' which is quite untrue."
The Winnipeg-based agency's Project Arachnid, which crawls the web for abuse material, has been able to flag about 96 million suspicious images.
"We see new material on a regular basis. We see it at a rate that's higher than what we can actually classify it at," he said.
It shouldn't just be up to police to crack down on the problem, he said — companies bear some responsibility.
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.
Online abuse and sexual exploitation of children can be reported anonymously to cybertip.ca.