Two Alberta fathers face exploitation charges related to their four-year-old daughters

Two Alberta fathers have been charged in relation to the sexual exploitation of two four-year-old girls.

The Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams' (ALERT) child exploitation unit conducted two unrelated searches on July 19 in Edmonton and Sylvan Lake.

"The victims were allegedly being sexually offended by their fathers," ALERT said in a news release Tuesday.

In Sylvan Lake, a 37-year-old man was charged with incest, making child pornography, possession of child pornography and accessing child pornography.

In Edmonton, a 29-year-old man was charged with sexual assault, sexual interference, two counts of possession of child pornography, making child pornography and distributing child pornography.

"These arrests have stopped the abusebut sadly the recovery process for these young girls will be long and difficult," Insp. Dave Brink, with the Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit, said in the news release.

"Thankfully, we have excellent partners that provide enhanced victim support services."

The victims are receiving help from Edmonton's Zebra Child Protection Centre and from the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre.

The names of the suspects are not being released to protect the identity of the victims.

Additional victim in Sylvan Lake, police allege

Both cases were discovered using Googlesoftware engineered to detect child exploitation images and videos.

On July 6, Google notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the U.S. that a user uploaded an image of child exploitation into a Google Photos account.

Sgt. Troy Hadland, with the Calgary ICE unit, said they used the associated IP address and tracked it to a home in Sylvan Lake.

After issuing a search warrant and doing additional investigation, ALERT believes there is a second victim in the Sylvan Lake case.

"We learned that there may have been an incestuous relationship between the 37-year-old and another family member" who is now 18 years old, ALERTtold CBC News.

ALERT is considering the alleged incest a historical case.

The 37-year-old man was not the primary caregiver of the four-year-old girl. He's due back in court on Aug. 2.

The Edmonton case was pursued after a video was uploaded to YouTube depicting child exploitation, Det. Ian McFatridge with the Edmonton ICE unit said.

The associated IP address led to a west Edmonton home.

After searching the home, ALERT arrested the 29-year-old man in relation to the video. As a result of the investigation, policebelieve he'd been "sexually offending on his daughter," McFatridge said. The man's next court appearance is Aug. 13.

Police said the assault of the four-year-old girl took place in the past year, but McFatridge said she seems mostly fine with the support she's received.

"Fortunately, in this case, we have no reason to believe there's going to be any recollection of what happened," he said.

Hadlandsaid the child exploitation software built into many social media platformshas been instrumental in their work. "The majority of our files come through Google, Facebook, Instagram," he said.