When police officers in Saanich, B.C., placed an ad in the "erotic services" section of Craigslist hoping to entice men looking to buy sex from underage girls, they were taking a new approach in B.C. law enforcement's growing campaign to catch sexual predators online.

Municipal police forces in other parts of the province have been doing undercover online investigations into child sex offenders for years, but the Saanich department's ad promising "Sexy, young tight bodies lookin for fun" was something B.C. had never seen before.

"I don't think any other police department has tried this at that point," Const. Andy Stuart told ctvbc.ca.

The one-day operation snared two suspects, one of whom -- Pai-Chih Chiang -- is now arguing that he was entrapped by the police department. He says that he had no reason to believe he was buying the services of an underage girl until he arrived at the hotel-room police sting on April 14.

Experienced child sex investigators in other departments say that even after dozens of arrests and convictions, they've never been accused of anything untoward by the men trapped in their undercover nets.

But that's partly because, as Stuart says, they've never tried what Saanich did.

Throwing a lure in the water

One of the province's most dedicated hunters of child predators is Det. Mike MacFarlane of the New Westminster Police Service.

He started the department's online operation in 2007, and estimates that since then, about 10 suspects have pled guilty to various internet-related child sex offences. Only one suspect has opted to try his luck in court.

Entrapment has never been an issue in MacFarlane's arrests. "We're not going to them; they're coming to us," he said of his targets.

The Saanich police approach, on the other hand, is more active. "The police have gone out and thrown a lure in the water," MacFarlane said.

In his experience, throwing a lure into the water has never been necessary.

MacFarlane begins his investigations by creating a profile in a chat room, like those operated by MSN and Yahoo! He only gives his "age" -- 13, 14 or 15 -- when asked directly.

"I just sort of hang around and wait for the boys to come to me," he said. "It's a very passive conversation; we let them do all the talking."

He says he can tell within the first 15 minutes of a conversation whether or not he's dealing with a potential suspect.

"They ask questions like, ‘Do you have a boyfriend, do you kiss, do you have sex, do you want to see my webcam?'"

MacFarlane develops an online relationship with the men -- husbands, fathers, grandfathers -- whom he calls his "boyfriends." They chat for hours -- he even brings his laptop along on family vacations when an investigation is underway.

"When you start talking, four hours can go by in no time at all -- just chatting with the boyfriend," he said.

Eventually, although the correspondence can last for months, the men ask to meet, and MacFarlane agrees, setting a trap at the designated rendezvous spot.

If police believe the man has committed an offence -- things like child luring and communicating with a minor for the purpose of obtaining sex -- MacFarlane will arrest them.

"Some are sex offenders, or sexual deviants, so to speak, but others are a normal everyday person with stressors in their lives," he said.

"Sometimes you wonder, well, what the heck happened here?"

Mining the Internet

Like New Westminster, the Vancouver Police Department has a well-established online presence when it comes to nabbing suspected child predators.

The VPD's vice squad made its most recent online child sex offence arrest on July 23, when Indian citizen Ram Reddy Yalaka was arrested at his Burnaby home on allegations that he performed live sex acts on webcam for someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl.

His arrest was part of the VPD's Predator Watch program, in which undercover officers pose as underage people online to catch suspected sexual predators.

Sgt. Tony Cavezza told ctvbc.ca that two officers from the vice unit are assigned full time to tracking child sex crimes online.

"Normally, we respond to complaints that come in and then we deploy our tactics," he said.

But the VPD also works "proactively" to find suspects.

Cavezza wouldn't comment specifically on the force's proactive strategies. Do they place ads on Craigslist like the Saanich department did? Pose as young girls in chat rooms like MacFarlane does?

However, Cavezza did say that officers will pretend to be children and teens.

"The person thinking they're talking to a young, 14-year-old girl can be talking to police officer instead," he said.

RCMP just getting started

Perhaps surprisingly, the province's largest police force is only now preparing for its own undercover online operations.

The B.C. RCMP's Integrated Child Exploitation team, or ICE, is launching its first online operation in the fall, Cpl. Mat Van Laer told ctvbc.ca.

"We're finally getting around to getting that extra tool in our belt," he said. "It's quite disappointing that we aren't there yet."

Van Laer said that ICE won't just be responding to complaints. The officers will be taking a "proactive" approach to targeting child sex offenders online, "seeing if we can draw out the offenders, or people who are preying on those children."

The RCMP are still tinkering with their online approach, but Van Laer said they plan to use various online tools, including social networking, website postings and chat rooms.

"We're trying to make an approach where we could target the greatest pool of people," he said.

Although Van Laer declined to comment on any specific methods the Mounties plan to use in their online investigations, he said that he doesn't anticipate any entrapment arguments being made against ICE.

"There is not going to be any aggressive approach from the officers online," he said. "We're basically letting the offender do all the work."

Setting a precedent

Whatever approach the RCMP decide on, the future of their online investigations hinges on the outcome of Pai-Chih Chiang's Monday hearing in B.C. Supreme Court.

If the judge accepts Chiang's argument that he was entrapped by Saanich police and agrees to stay proceedings against him, police departments across the province will have to take a second look at their own strategies and gird themselves against similar arguments.

But if the judge rejects Chiang's argument, a whole new avenue of investigation will open up for police investigating child sex crimes online. They'll be free to take a more active approach in undercover communications, rather than waiting for the "boys" to come to them.

"It'll be interesting to see what the outcome will be," New Westminster's MacFarlane said. "At least we'll get some case law, and know what's acceptable."