A 23-year-old Burnaby man is among 11 men facing charges following Operation Snapshot III, a coast-to-coast investigation aimed at cracking down on child sex offenders.
The Burnaby man, whose name has not been released, is charged with two counts of possession of child pornography. He is one of two Lower Mainland men facing charges as part of Operation Snapshot III; the other is a 35-year-old Surrey man.
The RCMP announced on Thursday that five children were removed from harm and more than 150 individuals across the country have been arrested or are under investigation as part of the ongoing Operation Snapshot. The operation targets “child sex offenders who collect, possess, share, make available, distribute and produce child sexual exploitation material online,” read a press release from RCMP headquarters in Ottawa.
“As a result of Snapshot, there are 29 investigations in B.C. and 22 of those were in communities policed by the RCMP,” Sgt. Rob Vermeulen, senior media spokesperson for the B.C. RCMP, told the NOW.
Those 22 RCMP investigations produced more than 30 charges against the 11 men from cities across the province, including Duncan, Nanaimo, Sidney, Kelowna, Vernon, Revelstoke and Williams Lake, as well as Burnaby and Surrey.
Operation Snapshot III began in February and involved more than 40 police agencies coordinated by the RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre.
“It’s very collaborative,” Vermeulen said. “In fact, it’s very collaborative between police agencies throughout the country and throughout the world really.”
In addition to the charges laid, Mounties also rescued two B.C. children from harm but the names and place of residence of these two kids will not be released due to privacy issues.
“They’re victims, so we’re going to protect them,” Vermeulen said.
Operation Snapshot III follows on the heels of two previous investigations, one in 2012 and the other in 2013. During the course of the initial two operations, five children were removed from harm, 54 arrests were made and millions of sexually exploitative images of children were seized.
