The senior OPP officer had a stark warning for parents, as police outlined their latest crackdown on Internet-based kiddie porn.

"There's people just laying in wait to prey on your children," OPP Insp. Scott Naylor said Wednesday during a news conference at Niagara Regional Police headquarters in St. Catharines.

Naylor's warning wasn't meant as a scare tactic to needlessly stir up fear and angst among parents.

He was stating a simple fact gleaned from thousands of investigations over the past few years - the predators are out there, lurking in online social networking sites and chat groups, trying to reel in innocent young kids to be victimized by deviant adults.

"We have undercover officers that are working these (sites) . and they get hit on very, very quickly," he said.

The most recent child pornography sweep by several partner police services snared 11 suspects from the Golden Horseshoe, including five from St. Catharines.

The St. Catharines suspects include four men and one youth, who cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Some of the suspects are accused of luring children so they could be exploited for sexual purposes, while others are accused of possessing child porn and distributing it to others.

Police said one child victim was identified as a result of the porn probe and others may be found as the investigation continues.

The arrests followed an investigation over the past couple of weeks overseen by the OPP child sexual exploitation unit along with police in Niagara, Hamilton, Halton and Peel.

Most of the suspects were arrested Tuesday.

"The sweep carried out (Tuesday) serves as a very loud wake-up call to those who would do harm and commit these monstrous crimes against children," Naylor said.

Investigators said the suspects are not believed to have been part of an organized group or ring distributing porn.

"At this point in time, we're not sure if they were trading amongst themselves, but they were making their material available to others as well as distributing material and accessing material as well," said OPP Det. St. Sgt. Frank Goldschmidt.

The large number of St. Catharines suspects doesn't indicate the city has a disproportionate amount of child pornography, NRP Deputy Chief Joe Matthews said.

"This is a worldwide problem," he said.

"It's a crime that you discover when you go looking for it. Our officers were heavily involved in this. They went looking and they discovered the number of people they did."

In four years since the provincial government launched a co-ordinated strategy to battle online child porn, police services have carried out more than 10,500 investigations resulting in 3,600 charges against 1,200 suspects.

The latest sweep saw nearly 40 charges laid against 11 suspects including:

Bruce Kyle, 40, of St. Catharines is charged with two counts of luring a child.