A teenager is saved from years of alleged sexual abuse after police arrest more than 20 people in a major child porn operation.

Some 21 people have been arrested, and 16 of them charged so far as part of Operation Snapshot, according to Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The charges include invitation to sexual touching, internet luring, indecent exposure and accessing and distributing child pornography.

Authorities also rescued the boy identified in some of the images who had been sexually abused over the past five years in Saskatchewan province.

His alleged abuser was a friend of the boy’s family who was arrested in June and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Detective Sergeant Darren Parisien said hundreds of thousands of images were found on more than 100 computers or hard drives and 1,000 discs.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police teamed up with half a dozen police forces in Canada’s western prairies to identify suspects who possessed and distributed child abuse images across peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

A police spokesman told a nationally televised news conference: “With their activities, obviously they are using common file-sharing networks and common technology and common programs to chat and look for kids who possibly networked with other offenders.

“But none of the individuals (arrested) were directly related (to each other).”

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