Why did the trichan csam investigations lead to no arrests
Executive summary
The Trichan investigations removed vast caches of child sexual abuse material from public forums but did not lead to arrests because the takedown effort was primarily detection-and-removal led by a charity working against a distributed, evasive infrastructure while legal, technical and jurisdictional barriers limited identification and prosecution of individual perpetrators [1] [2] [3]. Public reporting and academic analysis emphasize that service-provider complicity, content replication across CDNs, cross-border hosting and resource constraints meant the response focused on shutting sites and disrupting access rather than building prosecutable criminal cases [4] [1] [3].
1. The operational focus was removal, not prosecution
The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) created Project Arachnid to detect and issue removal notices for CSAM, and its records show tens of thousands of images were detected and removal notices issued — the organisational strategy and success were measured in content takedowns rather than arrests [2] [1]. Academic analysis of the Trichan takedown frames C3P’s intervention as an instance where civil society engaged directly with telecoms and upstream providers to stop public availability, underscoring a governance model optimized for content removal rather than criminal case-building [3].
2. Evasive, distributed infrastructure made attribution hard
Trichan forums relied on tactics that deliberately hid administrators and replicated content across networks, using CDNs and upstream providers to diffuse responsibility and make single-point attribution difficult, a problem documented in podcast interviews and C3P reporting about how admins tried to deceive hosts and use replication to survive takedown attempts [4] [1]. The technical architecture—messageboards, archives and mirrored files—meant investigators often encountered large archives and replication rather than discrete, traceable uploads tied to a single user account, complicating the evidence trail needed for arrest and prosecution [1] [4].
3. Commercial intermediaries and “mere conduit” defenses slowed enforcement
Multiple sources recount how internet service providers and content-delivery actors resisted being arbiters of content, with some ISPs historically invoking a “mere conduit” stance that hindered proactive policing of hosted material, and critics arguing that commercial priorities and reluctance to intervene have facilitated CSAM trafficking on ordinary infrastructure [4] [3]. The Trichan case showed that, without cooperation from hosting providers and CDNs, takedown required sustained advocacy and negotiation — effective for shuttering forums but not necessarily for producing custody-preserving evidence for law enforcement [1] [4].
4. Jurisdictional fragmentation and cross-border hosting reduce arrest prospects
Academic and C3P reporting stress that CSAM networks often span countries and use hosting and payment systems that sit outside any single prosecutorial reach, creating jurisdictional barriers to arrest that non-governmental takedowns cannot overcome alone [3] [1]. Where an offending server or administrator sits in a different legal regime, civil notices and pressure can prompt service changes or shutdowns but criminal arrest requires cross-border investigative capacity and mutual legal assistance processes that are slow, resource-intensive and not guaranteed by the public record on Trichan [3] [1].
5. Resource and priority constraints in criminal enforcement
Independent analysts have argued that shifting priorities in law enforcement and limited specialist investigator capacity can reduce follow-through on CSAM leads, with platforms reporting diminished follow-up from law enforcement in some contexts and experts warning that prosecutors and investigators have been reallocated to other tasks, a dynamic that would blunt prospects for converting mass-content detections into arrests [5] [6]. While Trichan reporting documents successful shutdowns, the public record provided does not detail parallel sustained criminal investigation outcomes, suggesting an operational gap between civil takedown work and formal prosecutions [1] [2].
6. Alternative view and limits of available reporting
Some observers argue that the primary metric must be harm reduction—taking material offline rapidly—even if arrests follow slowly or not at all, and C3P’s narrative credits persistent engagement with providers for shutting down Trichan [1] [2]. The sources used chronicle takedown tactics, technical evasion, provider roles and governance lessons [3] [4] but do not provide a detailed public accounting of whether law enforcement pursued specific suspects or why arrests did or did not occur in every case; therefore, definitive statements about prosecutorial decisions or specific investigative failures cannot be made from the available reporting [3] [1] [2].