The U.S. Department of Homeland Security alerted city police to a local man's online activities, triggering an investigation that resulted in child pornography charges.
Travis Morin was in a Sault Ste. Marie courtroom Monday, where he pleaded guilty to two offences stemming from the 2022 probe.
The 25-year-old Aweres Township man was convicted of making available child pornography and possession of child pornography.
The distributing child pornography offence occurred between Jan. 19 and Feb. 17 of last year.
The possession charge was related to videos and pictures of children under the age of 18 involved in explicit sexual activity. This offence occurred between April 19, 2021 and April 5 of last year.
Superior Court Justice Michael Varpio heard that the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service launched the investigation after being tipped off by American authorities in February of last year.
An undercover online investigator had discovered Morin had been on certain platforms, frequenting child pornography sites, in January and February of 2022.
He was posting child pornography videos and images of pre-pubescent youngsters, prosecutor Robert Skeggs said. He also was involved in user to user lnternet chats.
Homeland Security said the individual appeared to be located five hours away from Detroit, and the IP address seemed to be in Sault Ste. Marie.
On April 5, city police and Ontario Provincial Police officers executed a search warrant at Morin's residence and seized numerous devices.
Forensic examinations of the devices, conducted by the Sault police Technogical Crime Unit, subsequently revealed child pornography had been downloaded and uploaded from accounts associated with the accused.
They found child exploitation material, including what the U.S.investigators had seen, Skeggs said.
Seventy-six videos were located on one device, Varpio heard. Another had 579 videos with content that included children under the age of 10 engaged in sex with adults.
Defence lawyer Ken Walker and the Crown requested that sentencing be put over until Sept. 19.
Walker told the court the lawyers will have a joint position on sentence at that time.