A 42-year-old Canadian man faces 181 charges of cyberbullying and harassment after joint investigation by the US, Canadian and British police forces. He is accused of bullying 38 people in total in the three countries, some of them for more than a decade.
Authorities report that Robert Campbell set up fake linkedin and email accounts in the names of his victims and claimed that they were “strippers, members of a Nazi youth group, or affiliated with an organization called the ugly fat chicks of Ottawa,” thus damaging their reputation and personal life.
While it took some time for the police to connect the dots linking all of the victims, the authorities were able to detain the suspect in the end. It is reported that Campbell’s use of anonymity software to hide and mask his online identity created some difficulties in the investigation.
Campbell is charged with 27 counts of criminal harassment, 85 counts of defamation and libel, and 69 counts of identity fraud.
“You look at the sheer number of charges that we laid against the individual — that shows you how seriously it was taken,” said Cartright, acting inspector officer for the Ottawa Police.
While he won’t discuss the details of the investigative techniques developed specifically for this case, he did have a warning for online fraudsters: “We have the technology and the expertise and the ability to seek others globally to bring you to justice.”
