THUNDER BAY — Investigators believe hacking was used to obtain most of the hundreds of photos of local women and girls seized by police in a major cybercrime bust.
When asked how the victims are doing now that charges have been laid, police were unsure how to answer.
"For the most part, a lot of the victims weren't aware that their images were being traded and that (images) were being distributed without their consent," said acting Detective Inspector Rob Gombola.
"So shock was, I think, in the forefront. Some recognized, I think through the investigation, that their images were being distributed, but none of (the victims) gave consent."
Illicit images were obtained through hacking, said Gombola, and were never meant to be distributed. He also wanted to make it clear that throughout the case, no local cellphone repair shops have been tied to the investigation.
“Probably 80% of these cases, these images were in the person's possession who they were taken from," said lead investigator Detective Constable Joel Manherz.
"Someone went into their account and took these images . . . It doesn't matter if that's what happened or if they sent it to somebody and that person decided to share it. They're all true victims and we're going to be taking this stuff seriously when it happens in the future, and we're taking it seriously now, and so that's why we undertook this project."
Police said they learned of the illicit online forum through a victim who came forward, and the investigation snowballed from there.
They said officers were able to identify many victims as their images were labelled; some with both first and last names, others with nicknames.
Through the investigation, police identified 117 victims and said there could be others.
Manherz indicated that there are photos of victims as young as 12 years old that were collected into evidence.
Only one suspect, Darryl Renaud, is facing luring and extortion charges. Manherz said those charges did revolve around interactions with a minor.
"As we went through chats, we realized that something else was going on as well as what we were there to investigate," he said.
Asked if there was a financial or transactional aspect to those charges, Manherz said the charges "speak for themselves" but that he wasn’t at liberty to get into specifics.
Manherz said that he believes flaws in digital security at the time were taken advantage of, and that's how the victims' photos were accessed.
Using two-factor authentication, having strong passwords, and periodically changing passwords will help keep accounts secure, said Manherz.
"Ultimately, the blame here doesn't lay with (the victims); the blame here lays with the people who decided to go in and take their images and distribute them." said the constable.
He also believes these images have been shared beyond the 12 men charged in Thunder Bay.
Gombola told the media that the Thunder Bay Police Service's cyber crimes unit has been investigating this case for 18 months.
"It was a huge undertaking," said Manherz.
Both officers indicated that hundreds of hours were spent combing through online data, in online chatrooms, and waiting for cooperation from third-party agencies and online platforms.
An unnamed online platform did not accept Canadian production orders to share online data. Instead, TBPS had engaged in a "mutual legal assistance treaty request," said Manherz.
"Typically, it takes anywhere from one to two years to get those results, but within 10 months after that, they (the online platform) changed their mind, and they've started taking Canadian production orders, so we benefited from that changing course for them," said the constable.
Even saying the 10 months of waiting was "a huge hurdle . . . I think the important thing is we didn't let that stop us."
Since the internet is a vast and wide-reaching landscape, TBPS said they've had assistance from other agencies as the investigation progressed, including American and U.K. officials, OPP and police in Sudbury and Toronto.
Anyone who believes they might also be a victim or who has information that could assist investigators is asked to contact Detective Constable Joel Manherz directly at 807-684-1200 ext. 4115.
Tips can also be submitted anonymously through Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www.p3tips.com.
None of the charges have been tested in court.
