Brian Way officially became Canada’s most prolific and infamous child pornographer on Tuesday.

The 43-year-old Torontonian, who has been behind bars for four years on charges of possessing, publishing and selling videos of naked, pre-pubescent and pubescent boys, received a clear verdict from Ontario Superior Court Judge Julie Thorburn: “guilty.”

In all, Way was convicted on 15 of 16 charges and now awaits sentencing on what could be a lengthy prison term.

As the verdict was read, the clean-shaven Way sat expressionless, staring directly at Thorburn.

Her repetition of the word “guilty” in court brought to an end the decade-long saga of Way’s child pornography ambitions, which centered on a website called Azovfilms.com. From a nondescript warehouse on the Queensway, Way sold thousands of videos and images to customers around the world.

When Toronto Police raided his offices in 2011 and gathered 187,000 images and more than 8,000 videos, it triggered the largest child pornography bust in Canadian history and one of the largest anywhere, involving police in 90 countries.

Before the so-called Project Spade bust was over, police arrested and charged hundreds of Way’s customers internationally — including doctors, lawyers, coaches, teachers and priests.

“We’ve never had a case that is this far-reaching in scope and that felt so important to me,” said co-prosecutor Jill Cameron, following the decision. “I don’t think the images will ever leave me. Their faces haunt me. The effects on the children and the material that went out there — it was staggering.”

The global tentacles of Way’s child pornography business are striking.

More than a hundred arrests were made in Canada, plus 76 in the U.S. and 350 in other countries. The resulting police investigations led to the rescue of more than 400 children at risk who were featured in the images and videos, police say.

The scandal also triggered a political upheaval and changes to child pornography laws in Germany, after a high-profile politician was publicly identified as a customer of Azovfilms.com.

In Britain, Way’s products prompted scathing headlines about how British authorities were slow to react to information from Toronto police about potential predators swept up in the Spade investigation.

At least two Spade suspects committed suicide: a British teacher and the chief of staff to a U.S. senator.

The Star has viewed some of the films sold on Azovfilms.com as part of a six-month investigation it conducted last year behind the scenes with the Toronto Police Service’s child exploitation unit.

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The films included images of young boys in the nude, wrestling, posing provocatively and acting out scenarios that included close-up shots of their genitals.

The Star’s exclusive interviews with young Romanian boys featured in some of Way’s videos confirmed they were duped by Way’s filmmaker partner, Markus Roth, into being on film without knowing their images would be sold around the world.

Most spoke of being humiliated and ostracized in the small northern villages where they live.

Thorburn ruled that about 60 of the 176 films presented as evidence against Way met Canada’s legal definition of child pornography, in that they featured “lengthy nude scenes,” “the camera zoomed in on the genitals,” “there was no reason in the storyline for nudity” and they showed “sexualized poses.”

One film, for example, had a 48-minute nude scene featuring, in part, a young boy, “slowly and seductively savouring a greasy chicken while moaning, sucking and licking his lips.”

In another, boys are seen putting toothpaste on each other’s nude bodies and later arching backwards with their “penises in the air,” she said.

Thorburn concluded: “The films became increasingly sexual… I’m satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that those films… were made for a sexual purpose.”

Way saw steadily increasing revenues as his films became increasingly risqué, she noted, with sales reaching $1.6 million in 2011.

In an April 2008 email, Way wrote: “We are trying something new so I don’t know how law enforcement will react,” Thorburn said in her judgment. “What sells the water videos so well is that the white underwear is see-through,” he wrote in another.

Way’s lawyer, Nyron Dwyer, said his client will consider an appeal of the decision after a closer review. “He has been under this for a long time.”

Det.-Const. Lisa Belanger, the lead investigator with Toronto police, said she was happy with the ruling.

“I hope to hear more about the overall exploitation of children this business caused. Ultimately, it was the same boys in all the films, whether the judge found them all to be crossing the line or not.”

Cameron’s fellow Crown prosecutor, Jennifer Strasberg, said she came to identify with the young victims during the course of the case.

“We felt like we watched them grow up. We wanted to do something for them because they have to live with the fact that their pictures are all over the Internet for all time.”

The prosecutors said they will seek an order for a psychiatric assessment of Way prior to sentencing.

The maximum jail sentence for the offence is a decade. But the Crown could seek consecutive sentences.