An Edmonton man was arrested earlier this month for online child sexual exploitation, after using Snapchat to track two youths related to each other and threatening them into sharing sexually explicit videos of themselves, according to the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT).
Police arrested Arshdeep Singh, 18, who used the username “max_bxyz,” on Sept. 10. He was charged with child luring, extortion, criminal harassment and several offences related to child sexual abuse materials, police said.
“There are numerous luring investigations that come through our office. … The standout in this one is that this male attended their home and approached and spoke to one of these young victims,” Staff Sgt. Alison Church, of the ALERT northern Alberta Internet Child Exploitation unit (ICE), told reporters during a news conference Friday.
“We believe that occurred because of the location-sharing that was activated on that Snapchat account,” she said.
The investigation into Singh started after one the victims’ parents contacted Edmonton police in August, police said. The kids affected are related, but police didn’t specify how. Singh was a stranger to them.
The victims spoke with Singh over Snapchat. He made “significant threats of violence,” convincing them their family members would be murdered if they didn’t send pornographic pictures and videos of themselves, Church said.
He also told them that he knew where they went to school, she added.
Snapchat has a function called Snap Map, which allows users to see where their friends are anywhere in the world. The function is deactivated by default when a profile is created, but users can opt to share their location with any number of friends on the app.
Police believe Singh used that map to track the victims, travelling to one of their homes and speaking to one of them on that property.
Singh was scheduled to appear in court at 1 p.m. MT Friday, Church said, but the ICE unit’s investigation is ongoing because some “technological exhibits” still need to be examined.
According to an ALERT news release issued Friday morning, police are also investigating whether there are more victims, and asking anyone with knowledge about the case to contact police or send information anonymously to Crime Stoppers.
The Edmonton Police Service and Zebra Child Protection Centre, an Edmonton organization that helps youth who have experienced abuse, are helping with the investigation, the news release said.
Church pleaded to parents to review their children’s Snapchat accounts to search for the username Singh used. If they find it in the friends list, or some kind of association, they should contact police, she said.
‘Not an isolated case’
The Winnipeg-based Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) knows of similar cases thanks to its tip line, said Camillia Layne, one its managers.
The organization runs Cybertip.ca, where people can report online child sexual exploitation. Layne said it received more than 3,000 reports of online child luring in 2025 alone.
“[It’s] not an isolated case, based on the tactics that were utilized and the harm that was caused … but certainly a very, very unfortunate incident that has happened,” she told CBC News.
Online child sexual exploitation — an umbrella term for various forms of abuse, such as child pornography, sextortion and luring — has been a rising problem nationwide, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Alberta, the ICE unit’s file intake has more than quintupled since fiscal 2018, rising from almost 1,050 cases to nearly 5,700 last year, according to data contained in ALERT’s annual reports.
Part of the onus falls on tech companies, Layne said. The case ALERT announced Friday, she said, is another example highlighting the need for regulation and accountability to keep kids safe online.
“For too long, we’ve just let them do what they want in terms of having kids and adults in the same environments — and with very little safeguards,” she said.
Using social media safely
In light of this investigation, police are encouraging parents to speak with their kids about safe social media use, and for people to review their location-sharing settings on social media apps.
“Historically, we have had incidents where children have been taken — and they have been taken from their home locations,” Church said.
“The outcome [in this case] could have been very different.”
Conversations about online safety can reinforce to a child that their parent is a safe space, said Maya Parkins, a community educator with the Saffron Centre, a non-profit in Sherwood Park, Alta., that helps sexual violence survivors.
Simply asking a child about the topic can get the ball rolling, Parkins said, but it’s important that parents approach those talks with curiosity, not judgment.
“Showing that you’re open to having conversations about different topics, and you’re willing to talk about the hard things or the uncomfortable topics, it’s really important so that the kiddo knows that, no matter what, and if anything were to happen, they know exactly who their safe space now is,” Parkins said.
She and Layne said safe online practices, that can work across platforms, include not talking to anyone you don’t know in real life and being wary of what features apps can access on one’s technology.
Layne said parents should also check the settings of their children’s social media accounts, to ensure, for example, they aren’t sharing their location.
