Families are being warned about the danger of location sharing after a man in Edmonton allegedly used Snapchat to track down two youth he was victimizing online. The Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team’s (ALERT) Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit said the man, who went by the username “max_bxyz” on Snapchat, had been speaking with the victims online and threatening them into sharing sexually explicit videos of themselves. ICE said the man allegedly knew which school they went to and travelled to their family home. The agency said the victims complied with the man’s requests out “of extreme fear for their safety and the safety of their family.” “A case like this is manifestation of every parent’s worst fears and you can appreciate how scary this situation would have been for the victims,” said ICE Staff Sgt. Alison Church. “We want to prevent this from happening and are asking parents to please speak with their children about safe social media usage and at the very least turn off location tracking.” ICE began investigating the man in August after a victim’s family member called police; on Sept. 10, 18-year-old Arshdeep Singh was arrested and charged with: ICE believes there could be more victims and anyone with information is asked to call police or Crime Stoppers. The agency is urging parents and social media users to review their location sharing settings in social media apps.
