AIRDRIE — Alberta RCMP are expressing concern over risky social media trends after an attempted "catch a predator" sting operation by a group of youngsters resulted in a 12-year-old being briefly abducted earlier this week.
"It's amazingly dangerous what happened," said Staff Sgt. Mark Auger of the Southern Alberta Internet Child Exploitation Unit.
Mounties say the situation came to light in Airdrie late Monday when a 12-year-old boy was abducted in a car, only to escape at a stoplight and call police.
The suspect, a 37-year-old man, refused to stop for police and was later arrested at a Calgary residence. He faces multiple charges, including kidnapping, sexual interference and forcible confinement.
Subsequently, police said they learned the suspect had been targeted by at least seven youths in a “catch a predator” scheme.
The youths arranged through social media a meeting with the suspect at a neighbourhood in Airdrie, on Calgary’s northern outskirts. Police say it appears the children hatched the plan by themselves.
They then recorded the 12-year-old voluntarily getting into the car as it drove away.
Auger said similar schemes have evolved into popular social media trends in the United States and some appear to be making their way to Canada.
The concept, he said, was originally popularized by the 2004 reality TV show “To Catch a Predator,” which followed numerous undercover sting operations. He said social media trends have contributed to a surge in the show's popularity and inspired similar schemes elsewhere.
"A lot of these things will end in violence," Auger said. "Let's not risk the joke or trend or the current topic on TikTok and try to enact this ourselves."
He added the vigilante efforts by the youngsters make it far more difficult to prosecute the suspect, who police say was known to the internet child exploitation unit.
Video evidence obtained by the children, for example, may be considered inadmissible because of the context in which the interaction happened, Auger said.
"A lot of that will be considered tainted evidence because we don't know how the script went, how the conversation went," Auger said. "Was it entrapment? Who started the conversation down that road?"
The suspect’s identity is under a publication ban. He is to appear in court Thursday in Airdrie.
With children heading back to school soon, RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Gina Slaney appealed to parents to have conversations with their children about the risks of engaging with certain social media trends.
"This could have been way worse than what actually happened," Slaney said.
"Parents, please sit down and talk with your children ... these things are happening all the time on TikTok and Snapchat, and all those things we know are out there for our kids to have access to."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 20, 2025.
Matthew Scace, The Canadian Press
