The Ottawa Police Service Internet Child Exploitation Unit initiated an investigation on May 12, 2026, after an 11-year-old in Ottawa was sexually exploited online over several months by a suspect who also abused a 14-year-old in the United States; the suspect travelled from the US to Ottawa in July 2025 to meet the 11-year-old victim. Joseph Erkert, 22, of Pennsylvania, was arrested by US authorities through a coordinated HSI-OPS investigation and charged with multiple offences including sexual abuse of children, unlawful contact with a minor, corruption of a minor and aggravated indecent assault.
Cross-border exploitation cases like this one depend on forensic examination of digital evidence after the abuse has occurred and the child has been harmed, often for months. Guardii's anti-grooming and anti-sextortion modules monitor children's direct messages in real time across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms, detecting the escalating contact patterns that precede physical meetings and blocking predatory advances before the relationship progresses. A world-leading AI platform backed by Startmate, Guardii surfaces the child in crisis to the parent or school safeguarding lead immediately, enabling the rapid escalation to specialist units like Ottawa's Internet Child Exploitation team—and preventing the cross-border travel, sustained abuse and multi-agency forensic effort that this case required.
