Niagara Police expanding team responsible for catching child predators in response to disturbing rise in luring

In just two years, Niagara Police has recorded a 51 percent increase in referrals from Canada’s national database tracking online child exploitation and luring, resulting in a 133 percent increase in criminal charges against those looking to exploit an online generation.

The Operational Child Sexual Exploitation Analysis Network (OCEAN) sent 376 referrals to the Niagara Police Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit in 2025, up from 249 in 2023. This system is operated by the RCMP through the National Child Exploitation Crime Centre (NCECC) which receives reports of such online crimes against children and forwards them to police services in the correct jurisdictions. 

 The number of referrals, investigations, arrests and charges for online child sexual exploitation crimes are all on the rise across Niagara.

(Niagara Regional Police)

The trend is being observed across the country where disturbing cases of child abuse and exploitation are increasing in number and severity. 

According to data released by Statistics Canada on March 10, in 2024, police forces in Canada recorded nearly 17,000 incidents of online sexual offences against children— almost three times higher than 2018 and 182 percent higher than 2014. More than three quarters of these crimes involved child sexual abuse and exploitation material (CSAEM), previously called child pornography. 

Luring, the non-consensual distribution of intimate images involving victims 17 or younger, and invitation to sexual touching are also increasing.  

Between 2023 and 2024, Canada recorded a 43 percent increase in the total number of these offences reported to police, driven largely by a 65 percent spike in luring cases in one year.

The growing workload and complexity of these crimes involving larger caches of disturbing online imagery, the ease of access to generative artificial intelligence software, and the proliferation of apps offering encryption mechanisms to hide a user's identity are making it harder for police to catch perpetrators. That is if they even have the resources. 

“Many police services do not have the resources to investigate all cases forwarded by the NCECC. As a result, the numbers presented…(account) for only a subset of suspected OCSE cases within Canada,” the Statistics Canada report explains. 

With other organizations beginning to track this data, the limitations of police-reported information is becoming clear. 

For example, between 2018 and 2022, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) reported an 815 percent increase in reports of luring. Police reported a 53 percent increase over the same period. 

As the technological landscape has made it harder to catch these criminals, they have become emboldened. 

Data released by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection in January show extreme violence, targeting primary young girls on social media is increasing. The data comes from reports sent in to the C3P’s Cybertip and NeedHelpNow.ca tiplines. 

“Details of the reports to Cybertip.ca and NeedHelpNow.ca reveal that this form of gender-based violence generally includes aggressive coercive tactics, such as threats to distribute intimate images, blackmail, and doxing in an attempt to force victims to engage in dangerous behaviours,” a C3P press release explains. 

These disturbing behaviors, perpetrated by offenders through social media and applications like Discord, include self harm and suicide attempts; disordered eating behaviours like purging, sexual and/or degrading acts against themselves or another child, and acts of violence, like harming a pet.  

Reports of these behaviours to C3P have increased from five in June 2022 when C3P began tracking it, to 70 in 2025. When gender was known, 84 percent of victims were young girls, the youngest being just 11-years-old.

The vast majority of these offenders go unpunished.

“Reflective of the challenges involved in investigating cybercrime, 94 percent of (online) CSAEM incidents and 76 percent of online sexual offences against children incidents were not cleared by police in 2024, meaning that an accused had not been identified in connection to the incident or there was not enough evidence to proceed with laying or recommending charges,” the Statistics Canada report reveals. 

​​“This new and horrific type of abuse we see unfolding is heartbreaking, and should concern all Canadians. These emerging forms of violence impacting girls and young women online are sadly deeply entrenched in our digital environments,” Lianna McDonald, executive director of C3P said in a press release. “What we have said, and will continue to say, is that online services, especially those used by children, have a responsibility to take significant steps to ensure their platforms aren’t weaponized against their users…The gaps offenders exploit are so often known, and these online services have the ability to do so much more.”

Those gaps are well known for Niagara Police, which officials have said make it particularly difficult to catch criminals who most often are operating from different countries. The force has found it is often the case with the growing number of sextortion reports they are receiving. In the United States, the National Centre on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) recorded a shocking 18,000 percent increase in the crime between 2021 and 2023. 

“Such incidents tend to originate in overseas countries and involve international organized criminal networks, which causes many investigative and prosecutorial challenges,” a report that went before the Niagara Police Services Board on March 26 explains. 

It also details how the large seizures of images and data the force has undertaken in recent years, including one case that included a collection of over 750,000 images and 50,000 videos. These collections are reviewed by specialized software for evidence of CSAEM, but each image that is flagged must then be reviewed by an investigator. 

“This process continues to be labour intensive and is imperative in satisfying the Provincial Strategy mandate to assist in identifying victims,” the report reveals.

In response, the Niagara Police is doubling the size of its investigative team responsible for catching those looking to lure children over the internet. 

In 2026, two more officers are planned to receive the necessary training to conduct proactive, undercover luring investigations. This grows the team to six officers able to conduct this work, however, the two additional investigators will take approximately two years to become fully trained. 

“Ongoing training is required to address the continuously changing and emerging technologies of the internet, as well as the technical abilities of offenders,” the report explains.

The last time the unit expanded was in 2023 with the addition of one other investigator. 

Chief Billy Fordy explained to the police serviced board on March 26 that these additional resources have led to more people coming forward to report these crimes, potentially contributing to the increases being recorded. 

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