The BC RCMP Integrated Child Exploitation Unit (BC ICE) is crediting Victoria police with helping catch a man who was recently convicted of several child pornography charges.
Thirty-nine-year-old Christopher Thomas Smith, of Coquitlam, was arrested on Oct. 30, 2019, following an exhaustive joint investigation with VicPD that started about 16 months earlier in June 2018.
He was recently sentenced for the charges on Monday, including making or publishing child pornography, distributing child pornography and possession of child pornography.
Smith was sentenced to 13 months in prison for the charges, as well as three years probation and multiple conditions, including a ban on being near children under the age of 16.
“This conviction is a result of a lengthy inter-agency investigation, in which specialized ICE investigators identified a possible online predator communicating with someone whom they believed had a five-year-old daughter and made arrangements to meet them and their child for a sexual purpose,” said Cpl. Adelle Brown of BC ICE in a release Wednesday.
RCMP encourage anyone with information on suspected child exploitation to contact their local police or report their concerns anonymously on www.cybertip.ca.
“This work is very difficult and challenging for our investigators, but we are a small passionate group committed to bringing offenders who target children for a sexual purpose to justice,” said Brown.
“Each child rescued motivates us to keep moving forward with our work.”
RELATED:
Adam Chan
