64 people charged in massive Ontario child exploitation investigation
Ontario Provincial Police say 64 people have been charged in a large-scale child exploitation investigation across the province where 34 child victims were identified.Another 30 children were “safeguarded,” police said, which means removing a child who is in a dangerous position and who could be offended against.The investigation, dubbed Project Aquatic, involved 27 police forces across Ontario who identified and arrested several people for allegedly making, possessing and distributing child sexual abuse material, police said.OPP Det. Sgt.
Tim Brown told reporters on Wednesday there was one instance of luring where a person had engaged with an undercover officer online who allegedly wanted to meet with a child in real life for a sexual purpose.There was another person who was allegedly in possession of about 21 terabytes of data on multiple devices and hard drives containing child sexual abuse material, Brown said.“One terabyte can store up to 250,000 photos or 500 hours of video,” Brown said.“For every device seized, an officer or analyst examines each photo and video, which can take several weeks,” Brown said. “The time spent on each child sexual abuse investigation only grows with the continued increase of storage.”Brown said with each passing year, the tools used by predators “grows more sophisticated and harder to trace” from encryption, to the dark web, to AI-generated images.“With the advent of AI-generated images, our task to differentiate between real and synthetic victims adds yet another element to our efforts in apprehending those who make, possess access and distribute child sexual abuse material,” he said.Among those charged, police said more than 348 charges were laid and 607 electronic devices were
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