International child pornography case led to arrest of sex offender in Vancouver: police

What began as an investigation in New Zealand turned into an international child pornography case, police in Vancouver say.

The investigation resulted in the approval of more than two dozen charges against a local man alleged to have made and distributed child porn, the Vancouver Police Department said in a news release Wednesday.

Police spent 22 months on the case, which began in April 2020 when allegations were forwarded by New Zealand's Department of Internal Affairs.

Officials in that country contacted police about a "number of accounts on an international cloud storage platform" that were allegedly linked to people who lived in Vancouver. Those suspects, police were told, were believed to be viewing and sharing child pornography.

They were identified through "Operation H," a New Zealand investigation into those who shared images of child abuse. It was described as the country's largest and most challenging online child exploitation operation, and resulted in the arrests of 46 people in the island country.

It also had implications around the world, including in Vancouver, where police began to look into the suspects identified overseas as living in the city.

They said their investigation led them to Kristjon Olson, a 40-year-old who was living in East Vancouver at the time.

Olson has made headlines before in Vancouver as a convicted sex offender who was taken back into custody on child pornography charges in October 2020, after spending some time in halfway houses in Vancouver and Surrey. Prior to his arrest, he'd been the subject of warnings from police, who said the Correctional Service of Canada had assessed him "at a very high risk of sexually reoffending," and that children were most at risk. 

Few details were released at the time of his arrest in Surrey, other than that he faced seven new charges tied to pornography and breaching the conditions of his parole. 

On Wednesday, Vancouver police gave more information, saying that a series of crimes are alleged to have occurred between January 2019 and June 2020, before Olson moved to Surrey. The alleged victims lived in Canada and the U.S. at the time, police said.

In total, Olson faces 26 criminal charges, police said. Those charges include the making, distribution and possession of child pornography, as well as "exposing" and extortion, communicating with a minor for a sexual purpose, invitation to sexual touching and breaching court orders.

Police did not say how many other suspects identified by New Zealand officials, if any, are located in Vancouver, or what charges they could face following further investigation.