METRO VANCOUVER -- A transient man arrested by Dutch police in a rental cabin at a rural holiday park has been charged in the 2012 death of extorted and cyberbullied teen Amanda Todd.

RCMP confirmed late Thursday they recommended pornography, extortion and Internet luring charges against a suspect in the Netherlands in connection with Amanda’s suicide, which sparked international discussion online about cyberbullying and online safety.

The arrest brought relief to Amanda’s parents, although little is known yet about the suspect, 35-year-old Aydin Coban according to B.C.’s online court records, or how he preyed on vulnerable victims around the world.

===

VIEW MORE PHOTOS HERE, or if you're using a mobile app, tap the story image and swipe.

===

“What we understand is that he was a drifter, he moved from cabin to cabin in different vacation parks. His lawyer told us that he went from trailer park to trailer park, that he was very to himself and he has no wife or children,” said Hessel Rippe, editor-in-chief of the website for Omroep Brabant, the Dutch news agency that broke this story Thursday.

Prosecutors in the Netherlands confirmed a 35-year-old man was arrested in January and made his first court appearance in an Amsterdam court Wednesday, charged with multiple offences linked to luring young girls to expose themselves online and then blackmailing them later.

Prosecutors there have not released Coban’s name yet. In the Dutch legal system - even when a case goes to trial - suspects are usually only identified by their first name and last initial.

In October 2012, 15-year-old Todd was found dead in her Port Coquitlam home, five weeks after she posted a heartbreaking video on YouTube detailing how she was harassed online and bullied in real life.

Amanda’s mother, Carol Todd, said she has always wished that police would solve the case but she doesn’t think there is only one person involved.

“I’ve always hoped there would be something that came out of it,” she said in an interview Thursday. “If this guy is found guilty I hope they don’t stop there ... I think there is more.”

RCMP said they told Amanda’s mother and father, Norm Todd, about the Dutch suspect only two hours before Thursday’s news conference to protect the integrity of their investigation.

“I’m very proud to say that it was my major crime team that led this investigation,” said Coquitlam RCMP Insp. Paulette Freill. Freill wouldn’t elaborate on whether the suspect was first targeted by Canadian or Dutch investigators, but she said the Canadian charges relate to incidents that occurred between Jan. 1, 2010 and Oct. 10 2012.

After Todd’s death, up to 30 officers from the Copquitlam detachment helped in the investigation, Freill said.

After Thursday’s conference, B.C.’s Criminal Justice Branch released a statement saying it will ask the federal Department of Justice to request the man be extradited to Canada to face the five charges, but it is unclear how long that may take given the charges he also faces in his native country.

The Dutch man is now facing one count each of extortion, Internet luring, criminal harassment, possession of child pornography for the purpose of distribution and possession of child pornography in connection with the suicide death of Amanda Todd.

Carol Todd, now a vocal advocate for stricter security controls on sites like Facebook, gave a short statement at the news conference thanking investigators and wishing her daughter’s legacy would contribute to more online predators being caught.

“I always knew deep in my heart that what my daughter told me was the truth,” said a teary-eyedTodd. “We respect that while this is a significant development, the judicial process has just started.”

“Amanda’s story and the challenges she has faced touched many across the world, “ Todd said.

She praised the RCMP’s efforts and said she hopes her daughter’s death will continue to create awareness around how dangerous the Internet can be for young people.

“I’m just really glad that we finally have a suspect arrested, hopefully we can get some justice out of it,” Norm Todd said during a brief statement.

In a statement released Wednesday, the National Public Prosecutor’s Office in the Netherlands said there could be several dozen victims in multiple countries, including the Netherlands, Greater Britain and the U.S. Dutch police are working with their counterparts in other countries, including the U.K. National Crime Agency.

“The suspicions against the man are that he approached underage girls via the Internet and then seduced them into performing sexual acts in front of a webcam. He is suspected of subsequently (pressuring) them to participate in making new material. The investigation has not revealed any indications that the suspect abused his victims physically,” the statement said.

Prosecutors allege the suspect may have also defrauded adult men outside the Netherlands. “These men performed sexual acts in front of the webcam on the assumption that they were in Internet contact with an underage boy. The suspect is thought to have blackmailed the men by threatening to hand the images over to the police,” the press release says.

The suspect, arrested in the De Rosep park near Tilburg in the south of the country, remains in custody on charges of indecent assault, the production and dissemination of child pornography, fraud, computer intrusion, and the possession of hard drugs.

According to Rippe, police seized a computer and a router from the suspect’s home, and are using the contents to identify as many victims as possible, which is expected to take some time.

A court in Amsterdam ruled Wednesday the man will remain in custody as police continue their investigation. Details of the arrest were kept quiet until this week’s court appearance, Rippe said, because of the sensitivity of the case.

Mathijs Pennings, the reporter with Omroep Brabantwho broke the story, said the suspect’s lawyer told him the man was born in the Netherlands, though his parents are Turkish immigrants.

Authorities in the Netherlands were tipped off by an American Internet provider and seized computers when the man was arrested, Pennings said.

The suspect’s lawyer, Christian van Dijk, said he doesn’t believe prosecutors have sufficient evidence to convict his client. He said even if there is evidence of unlawful activity on the man’s computer, it may have been hacked.

“Prosecutors seem to think they have a big fish here, but if I see the evidence, it’s not much,” he said. “Lots of references to IP addresses and such.”

In the video Amanda posted on YouTube before her death, Todd does not speak, but instead holds up to the camera pieces of paper on which she has printed her story, one phrase at a time. She documents a painful tale of being harassed through Facebook and shunned at school, leaving her feeling alone and suicidal.

It started in Grade 8, when an embarrassing photo was circulated to her relatives, friends and schoolmates. Todd switched schools, but the extortion - and real-world bullying that it created - continued.

“I can never get that photo back,” she writes.

Later, she was confronted by a group of teens in front of her new school and beaten up in an attack that was filmed. Despondent, Todd went home and drank bleach.

Her harassers posted photos of bleach and commented that they wished she were dead.

Near the end of the video, she writes: “Every day I think why am I still here? ... I have nobody. I need someone.”

The Todd case has been plagued by false information spread through social media. Shortly after her death, a hacktivist group had identified a Surrey teen as the girl’s tormentor, but RCMP later said the claim was “unfounded.” The Vancouver Sun interviewed the young man, who said he corresponded with Amanda online but was not one of her tormentors. The man identified by the hacktivist group — whose name was spread around social networks and on Vice.com but was not been published by mainstream media — told The Sun that he offered Todd help to uncover the identity of Amanda’s blackmailer.

With files from Gillian Shaw, Chad Skelton, Tiffany Crawford and The Canadian Press

lculbert@vancouversun.com

Follow me: @LoriCulbert

mhager@postmedia.com

Follow me: @MikePHager

===

VIEW MORE PHOTOS HERE, or if you're using a mobile app, tap the story image and swipe.

===