A Saanich man has pleaded guilty in what police are calling the most prolific case of voyeurism ever prosecuted in Canada, with 652 individual women and girls identified across thousands of images and hours of footage.
Yin Yeung Derek Chan, 39, was due in Victoria court on Thursday for sentencing, after entering a guilty plea back in October 2025. The charges stem from an investigation launched in early 2024 after Saanich Police were notified about inappropriate photos uploaded to an image-based social media site from somewhere in Saanich.
Previous Conviction and Investigation
Investigators identified Chan as a suspect, as he had previously been convicted of voyeurism after being caught filming a woman in a mall change room in Vancouver Island's Capital Region. As a result of the investigation, Chan was arrested in April 2024, and a search of his home uncovered thousands of inappropriate images and more than 28 hours of video footage.
Scope of the Offences
Investigators reviewed the images and footage and found that they had been recorded between April 2017 and November 2023 at various businesses, beaches, and through the windows of private residences across the region. All of the footage featured women and girls, and many of the images had been posted to websites accessed around the world. Police are now in the process of issuing formal requests to have the images removed from the various websites.
Charges and Legal Proceedings
Chan has pleaded guilty to several voyeurism-related offences, including surreptitiously recording people in a place where they reasonably expect privacy, observing and recording for a sexual purpose, making child pornography, publishing a recording that was obtained in the commission of a crime, and breaching three separate conditions relating to his previous conviction. He was released with conditions shortly after his arrest but later rearrested in January 2025 and has been in custody ever since.
Victim Impact and Police Efforts
Of the more than 600 victims identified, police have been able to make contact with 40 individuals. Some of them have agreed to share victim impact statements as part of the sentencing. Police are still working to locate all the women and girls who have been identified during the investigation. Anyone who thinks they may have been a victim is asked to email file950@saanichpolice.ca.
