CANADA
Toronto Star
By: Robert Cribb Foreign, Investigations Jennifer Quinn, News reporter Julian Sher, Published on Thu Nov 14 2013
The customers logged in from around the world: Germany. Spain. Mexico. Australia. Hundreds from Canada and the United States. They came from all walks of life; they worked as schoolteachers and newspaper editors, as police officers and doctors.
What they had in common, police allege, was that they paid a Toronto man to provide them with explicit “naturist” videos of children — and, as a result, they are now caught up in what is believed to be the smashing of the largest, most extensive commercial child pornography ring ever uncovered in Canada.
Among law enforcement, the investigation is known as Project Spade.
For nearly a year, a team of Star reporters was granted exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the child exploitation unit of the Toronto Police Service as they brought their three-year investigation to a conclusion.
At the centre of the ring, police allege, is Brian Way: A 42-year-old with a thin goatee and carefully groomed hair, he faces 24 charges of making, possessing, distributing, exporting and selling the explicit images of boys — who range in age from toddlers to teens — in videos that investigators say were edited, packaged and sold from his west-end Toronto warehouse.
They have also laid a charge of instructing a criminal organization, the first time this has been done in relation to a child pornography investigation. It is a charge more usually associated with gangs or organized crime.
“This case has really challenged people to reconsider what nudism and child modelling are,” said Toronto police Detective-Constable Lisa Belanger, who led the investigation. “It’s caused countries around the world to look at this material and ask whether it’s OK for doctors, teachers, daycare providers and hockey coaches to be buying this kind of material. Countries from South Africa to Australia, Isle of Man to Hong Kong and Spain have all said it’s not OK. I think it’s going to have ripple effects everywhere.”
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