A 21-year-old Edmonton man charged with sexually abusing children is believed to have victimized upward of 100 girls who have yet to be identified by investigators.
Imesh Ratnayake was originally charged in July in relation to sexual crimes against six children, the youngest of whom was 11 years old. He was later released on conditions.
Ratnayake is now facing 18 additional child exploitation charges — all related to the six previously identified children — following a months-long investigation by the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams’ Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit.
Ratnayake was re-arrested on Dec. 9 and remanded in custody. His new charges include sexual assault, making child pornography and child luring.
Investigators allege he used online profiles on the social media app Snapchat to meet his victims and lure them into performing sexual acts.
After poring through recently discovered images and videos, investigators now believe upward 100 children were exploited by the accused, Sgt. Kerry Shima of the ICE Unit said during a news conference Wednesday.
“These victims are unidentified and at this time, we are seeking from the public for assistance in identifying who they are,” Shima said.
“We are asking parents in the Edmonton region, the Morinville and St. Albert areas to speak with their kids.”
Investigators, including forensic technicians, have examined thousands of videos and images that depict victims of child luring and sexual assault, Shima said.
“The material that they’ve gone through is highly explicit. The acts depicted in those videos and photos are egregious crimes against kids and we want to determine who these children are.”
Investigators also want to rule out the possibility that other perpetrators were involved in the crimes depicted in the videos and photographs, Shima said.
Vapes, marijuana, alcohol used to lure victims
“There is a lot of information that we need to unlock here and we’re not able to do it alone.”
Police allege that Ratnayake was able to perpetuate the offences by gaining access to the victim’s contacts in Snapchat, in some instances through extortion.
“There was a degree of transactional behaviour involved,” Shima said. “Our investigative theory is that Mr. Ratnayake was luring the children using things like vapes, marijuana and alcohol.”
Ratnayake used several Snapchat profiles, police said. He may be known to his victims under the user names islandsauce0129, monked.ruffy or by his pseudonym, Matt Wintoni or mattwintoni.
“Releasing his Snapchat handles, it’s one of the ways that we’re going to be able to identify our victims,” Shima said.
“A lot of the time our victims of luring or online sexual exploitation don’t know who is on the other end of those devices or who they’re actually communicating with.”
Shima said predators posing as young people often use online profiles to make contact with their victims.
Snapchat is among the most popular platforms among children and has become one of the most prevalent places where child exploitation occurs online, he said.
CBC News has sought comment from Snapchat and is awaiting a response.
“As I’ve said before, we need parents to be on board with their kids in their applications and start talking about what these apps are used for,” Shima said. “Enhancing digital literacy is a really big part of this.”
Cybersecurity expert David Shipley said the case is part of a growing epidemic of online sexual exploitation of children.
Predators have “universal access” to children in online social media platforms, allowing them unprecedented access to potential victims, he said.
“This is happening more and more and more and we have to confront this,” said Shipley, CEO of New Brunswick-based Beauceron Security Inc.
Shipley said law enforcement agencies are struggling to keep pace with the scale of online exploitation. Protecting children requires improved policing resources, better technology safeguards and improved educational resources, he said.
“This is not going to be a problem we can solve with technology alone.”
Parents need to have tough conversations with their kids, and younger children should not be allowed unsupervised access to the internet, Shipley said.
“It’s a scale issue,” he said. “We will never be able to afford enough police to stay on top of this.
“If we aren’t helping our kids, we’re leaving them open to a growing army of predators around the world.”
The Zebra Centre for Child Protection, the Morinville RCMP, K Division general investigation section and the Edmonton Police Service assisted in the investigation, which began in June of this year.
Anyone with information on the case is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.