A Vancouver police officer posed online as a 14-year-old girl to snag a man who was allegedly trying to lure schoolgirls for sex.
West Vancouver resident Richard Christopher Garcia, 44, was arrested on Aug. 12 after arranging to meet up with the supposed teenager, and has now been charged with internet child luring.
The Vancouver Police Department says that its vice squad was alerted to Garcia when investigators noticed an ad on Craigslist, in which a man said that he was hoping to find a school-aged girl for sex.
Police say Garcia then exchanged emails containing sexual content with an undercover officer.
He has been released on bail with conditions, including that he stay offline and away from girls under the age of 16.
The arrest was made as part of the Predator Watch program, in which two officers with the VPD vice unit are assigned full time to tracking child sex crimes online.
A similar undercover online police investigation came under fire recently when the Saanich Police Department was accused of entrapment by a man arrested after responding to an "erotic services" ad on Craigslist.
Pai-Chih Chiang was convicted of communication for the purpose of obtaining sex from an underage person in June. Next month, a B.C. Supreme Court judge will rule on an application to stay proceedings against Chiang, based on the argument that police convinced him to buy sex from an underage girl when he was really looking for the services of an adult woman.
