VPD investigation leads to arrest in international child porn case

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A 22-month Vancouver Police investigation has led to more than two dozen criminal charges against a Vancouver man who allegedly made and distributed child pornography. (Photo - vancouver police/Twitter)

A 22-month Vancouver Police investigation has led to more than two dozen criminal charges against a Vancouver man who allegedly made and distributed child pornography.

"Online child exploitation cases are some of the most complex and disturbing for police, in part due to their digital nature and because the victims are often located around the world," says Sergeant Steve Addison. "Detectives from the Vancouver Police Department’s Internet Child Exploitation Unit worked for nearly two years to gather evidence and secure criminal charges in this case, which involved child sexual abuse material."

VPD launched a series of investigations in April 2020, after New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs identified a number of accounts on an international cloud storage platform that were linked to suspects in Vancouver who were viewing and sharing child pornography. The New Zealand investigation, known as Operation H, targeted people who made and shared child sexual abuse material around the world.

The VPD investigations led police to Kristjon Olson, 40, who at the time was living in East Vancouver.

BC Prosecution Service has now approved 26 criminal charges against Olson, including making, distributing, and possessing child pornography; exposing; extortion; communicating with a person under age 16 for a sexual purpose; invitation to sexual touching; and breaching court orders.

The alleged crimes occurred between January 2019 and June 2020, when Olson was living in Vancouver. The alleged victims lived in Canada and the United States at the time of the offences.

VPD’s Internet Child Exploitation Unit investigates the online exploitation of children, specifically the making, possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material. The unit’s priority is to identify, locate, and safeguard child victims depicted in child sexual abuse materials, and to arrest and seek criminal charges against offenders who make, distribute, and possess child sexual abuse materials.