A 12-year-old boy in Canada was abducted after a vigilante-style attempt to lure a suspected paedophile went badly wrong, police have confirmed.
The child and his friends arranged a meeting with a 37-year-old man in Airdrie, north of Calgary, using Snapchat to set up the encounter.
Investigators say the youngsters had been attempting to carry out a “To Catch a Predator”-style sting, imitating methods seen in online vigilante videos.
The boy voluntarily got into the man’s car while his friends attempted to record the staged meeting on their phones, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
However, officers said the plan spiralled out of control when the man drove off with the boy inside his vehicle.
The youngster managed to escape at a red light and was able to flee before further harm occurred.
RCMP said the suspect later tried to evade police when they attempted a traffic stop but was tracked with the help of a helicopter and arrested at a home in northeast Calgary.
He now faces nine charges, including abduction of a person under 14, sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, kidnapping, forcible confinement and breaching a prohibition order.
Police confirmed the boy and his friends were physically unharmed, but described the incident as “amazingly dangerous.”
Cpl. Christopher Hrynyk of Airdrie RCMP said in more than 20 years of service he had never seen anything like it.
“It’s such a dangerous situation to put themselves in. We don’t encourage anybody to take these vigilante steps,” he told reporters.
He warned that such attempts often end in “violence, suicide or sexual assault” and carry risks far beyond what the children understood.
Cpl. Hrynyk said officers were focusing on safeguarding the wellbeing of the boys while also gathering evidence about what happened.
“It’s a fine balance between getting the information about what happened and discouraging action on their part in the future,” he told the Calgary Herald.
The RCMP said the case highlights a worrying rise in children mimicking online “paedophile hunter” tactics.
The stings were first popularised by the US television show Dateline: To Catch a Predator, where suspects were lured to meetings and confronted on camera before being arrested.
In recent years, vigilante groups have copied the format, uploading their encounters to social media in pursuit of online exposure.
Speaking to CBC News, RCMP Staff Sergeant Mark Auger said: “It’s been a wide-known tactic in the States, it’s now starting to arrive here. We’ve come across it a fair bit. This is not an avenue to go down. It is not prosecutable, it’s not safe, and it’s more dangerous – there’s no reward.”
M10News Crime Desk | Contact: crime@m10news.com
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