They're not sending us back, are they?

* In your experience, what do you think is going on? My guess: I think someone, most likely a person who doesn't even know you or your kid, spoofed your kids number and sent a nude picture to somebody else who went to the police. I find that a little surprising, and also the fact that the police would follow up on it, so my imagination would guess that this was part of some ongoing harassment for the poor recipient. You were unlucky to be caught up in it.

This happened to my family. There was no crime. These cops were fishing for information. Cops show up and ask about some situation that doesn't exist, and the victim can't be identified (in my case was a missing teen girl who can't be identified). Then they ask you questions which WOULD be pertaining to the crime they said, but actually have to do with them finding out about you and how you relate to the community. It's a real dirty trick...the FBI had my moms believing that my aging pharmacist dad could be hanging out at the high school gym driving my car. But then couldn't stop wondering why they were asking her about who shops at the Arab butcher the most. They left after my mom told them that the 'Semperfi' bumper sticker on my honda wasn't a foreign political party, it was the shortened motto of the US Marine Corps.

I live in Canada. I think you were set up. You should probably talk to the police and explain what happened, since it is not good to have people running around posing as police and asking questions of a sexual nature. You might want to talk to an immigrant services organization like Vancouver's SUCCESS to see what they would recommend (they may have good relations with the police or a lawyer). In future, ask to see a badge and ask to talk to a lawyer. Don't open your door to strangers.

Two plainclothes cops identified themselves. [...] After a quick google their identity checks out as local cops. Let's give the poster the benefit of the doubt that they saw badges, etc., and were sufficiently convinced these were police officers.

Did these people actually show badges? Do you have a station or precinct you can call to follow up and make sure they were real officers? How did the ID themselves other than verbally?

Hello there anonymous, I'm a cop in a medium sized Canadian city and I'm here to tell you you have nothing to worry about. I'll answer all your questions below in detail as well. Let me start out by saying it's not a crime to send a nude photo of an adult (once) to a random person, but it might amount to Criminal Harassment (http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-264.html) or Harassing Telephone calls (http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-372.html) (note its subsection 2, not 1) if it keeps happening. So here's what happened as far as I can tell. Someone got a nude message on their phone and complainted to the police. The police want it to stop so they can conclude their file and go on to something else. They figure either 1) you kid did it 2) they have no idea who did it. So in case it was 1 (or some variation on 1 in which it's your or another family member) they stop by and say "STOP IT". If it never happens again they're happy. If it keeps happening and you're the ones doing it then they make any future charges under the section above really easy for themselves to prove because they've told you to stop. So they don't have to prove you knew it was unwanted, they'd just have to prove it was you. Which it probably isn't because of the way phones work and how easy it is to fake all that. Fun fact: Carding a person to a file for any police database in Canada requires name and Date of Birth. If they didn't ask for your exact name and date of birth (or your kids) they they don't even intend to formally list you on the file. If they did it doesn't mean you're a suspect, technically they SHOULD have got that info just because they spoke to you, but lots of officers will try to keep your name off the system if there's no good reason to have it there. * Now what? We haven't been charged, but should we expect charges to be laid anytime soon? ->No. Assuming that either a) they believed you OR b) the messages stop, you'll likely never hear from them again. * Should we go to the police station and find out what's going on, and maybe make a statement for the record? More specifically, should we go and ask them to show us their evidence? ->Good heavens no. You don't need to give a statement and they're under no obligation to show you any evidence, which is likely just a photo of an MMS message anyway. * Or, should we simply lawyer up? Although no one has been charged yet, my gut tells me to keep expecting the unexpected and to prepare for the worst. -> There's really no point. If they come back and want anything else THEN you should shut up and talk to a lawyer first. * In your experience, what do you think is going on? I find this to be a bizarre situation: if they had hard evidence, they surely would've laid charges, right? Because if they only have an accusation with no proof, why bother driving out to someone's home? Or (god i hope not) does it sound like they're putting a case together and they just came to confirm a few details? -> As I said above, one incident RARELY makes a harassment charge of any type. One visit from the cops usually puts to a stop 99% of harassment (other than domestic, but random strangers, unhappy customers, etc. those people usually give up when the cops indicate they know what's going on). The cops are doing their due diligence, they know there's a 99% chance that the person sending random porn messages isn't using their own phone, but they had a number and it wasn't from the other side of the world so they drove over and asked about it. Look at it from their perspective, it's easier to do that and bug you for 10 minutes than it is to try to explain to the victim AND the supervisor why they couldn't be bothered. * In a worst-case scenario, could this have any effect on our future citizenship application? After the hell we went through in our previous country, I think I can speak for all of us when I say I can't imagine a worst fate than being sent back. ->I'm not really an expert in Citizenship stuff. This will depend on a couple of things. First of all, have you already submitted your background check and police records checks to Citizenship and Immigration Canada? That stuff doesn't follow automatically so frankly if you commit a crime the day after you submit that stuff it would be totally dependent on whether the officer investigating the crime notices your citizenship status and follows up with CIC. Secondly, there's a big difference between showing up on a police file and being a "suspect chargeable" and then to being convicted. For a CIC application, as far as I know, only convictions would matter. Being a "suspect chargeable" (ie we could have charged the person but didn't for some reason - usually because it wasn't in the public interest, such as a first time offender stealing a candy bar, or due to lack of admissible evidence, like the witness said the person did it but also said they wouldn't come to court) is usually only disclosed for sensitive background checks, like if someone will be working with young children or other vulnerable people. Speaking of Citizenship status, other than showing me your passport or me randomly deciding to call CIC on the phone and ask there is NO automatic computer check that shows a police officer in Canada what your immigration stauts is. Also, the police DO NOT CARE, unless you have an immigration warrant. CIC issued warrants for some people who they want to remove and those show up the same place normal criminal arrest warrants do, on CPIC. This is to say that if your Canadian friend and your Permanent Resident friend and your refugee friend and your visitor visa friend all get pulled over for speeding and all show me their provincial driver's license to prove their ID I would have a) no idea b) no care, as to their legal status in the country. Cops in Canada are often really nice people. I'm anonymous on here because there are people in my bureaucracy who would have issues with this; and also so you can't sue me if I give bad advice. I am not a lawyer, not your lawyer, and basing my advice only on what you told me, I haven't read anything on the police side of the file so if you left something out that's on you, not on me. But speaking of really nice if you want to send me Metafilter-mail I am willing to speak to you on the phone at more length about this, anonymously or otherwise (that is I'll identify myself, but you don't have to.) Also if you mail the admins on this site they can sometimes post follow-up comments on your behalf to the anonymous thread. So if you have more questions but want to stay REALLY anonymous then you can do that as well.

Wikipedia article on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_spoofing. I'd be surprised if the issue went any further than this. One thing you could do is notify your cell provider (who might be able to figure out who sent the messages) and ask to have Pat's cell number changed.

Although no one has been charged yet, my gut tells me to keep expecting the unexpected and to prepare for the worst. I live in Canada -- welcome! I have absolutely no special legal or law enforcement knowledge, but I would be extremely surprised if you ever heard about this again. It seems like there was some spoofing, or perhaps at worst a prank by one of Pat's friends. It was probably part of a whole bunch of harassment or stalking, as someone said above, which is why they drove out to check. It sounds like the cops said, "Hey, everything's cool, but just keep an eye on your kid and make sure they're not getting into trouble." Based on what you've written here, were I you I would not worry about it.

I would call the police station and ask if these were legitimate detectives (anybody could print fake cards).