Toronto police said Thursday that 348 people, including 108 Canadians, have been arrested in an international child pornography ring that was largely centred around a Toronto-based film company that distributed images and videos across the globe.

Police said the three-year investigation included Canadian and international law enforcement agencies. Dubbed Project Spade, police said the effort resulted in 386 children being saved from exploitation.

"It's a first in terms of the magnitude of the victims saved," head of the Toronto police's sex crimes unit Insp. Joanna Beaven-Desjardins said. "It's been an ongoing, worldwide investigation."

Beaven-Desjardins said Toronto police first became aware in 2010 that Toronto-based Azov Films was distributing pornographic images and videos of children as well as streaming them on its website.

In 2011, police carried out a search warrant in Toronto’s west end. Azov was shut down and its owner, 42-year-old Brian Way, was arrested. More than 45 terabytes of data were seized.

“This is equivalent to a stack of paper as tall as 1,500 CN Towers,” Beaven-Desjardins said.

Way was charged with multiple counts related to child pornography, including selling and distributing child pornography and instructing commission of offence for criminal organization.

According to police, the company had been operating since 2005 and had revenues in excess of $4 million. For approximately $40, customers could buy about an hour of video, and receive photos at a discount, delivered online or by mail, police say.

After Way's arrest, Toronto authorities then spent months re-creating a customer database along with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.That information was shared with Interpol, leading to arrests of customers around the world.

Beaven-Desjardins said some of the children exploited in the films were as young as five. She said Azov commissioned videographers around the world to take pictures and images that the company would subsequently distribute through the mail and online. She said many of the victims were from Ukraine and Romania.

“(It was) very clearly child pornography, clearly children being sexually abused and/or exploited,” she said.

Det. Cst. Lisa Belanger of the Toronto police child exploitation section said many of the pictures and videos were shot in people's apartments, backyards and "dingy saunas."

“Sometimes they set up in backyards,” she said.

Beaven-Desjardin said that 24 Canadian children were rescued as a result of Project Spade. She said the children were not necessarily involved in the production of Azov material, and their exploitation was discovered when police were investigating people who bought material from the company.

Police said at the home of a retired teacher, they found 350,000 pictures and more than 9,000 video showing child sexual abuse. They say some of the children were known to the man, who is also accused of abusing a child in his family.

Spinoff investigations led to caches of images and hundreds of children from around the world.

At least two teachers and nine medical professionals were among the Canadians arrested.

Toronto police Chief Bill Blair called the investigation "extraordinary."

"There is no greater responsibility of those who serve and protect than the protection of our children," he said. "And exploitation of children is a crime for which law enforcement comes together united around the world to do our very best."

Beaven-Desjardins said Toronto police subsequently shared the company's customer databases with other Canadian as well as international law enforcement agencies.

American investigators with the U.S. Postal Service thanked the Toronto police Thursday, saying information on Azov led to more than 150 law enforcement actions against Americans who were purchasing material from the company.

"International cooperation is the most effective way to identify, track and combat those who sexually exploit children, who operate without borders," the acting deputy chief inspector of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service Gerald O'Farrell said. "It's essential to stopping these crimes."

Project Spade arrests by the numbers

Ontario: 50

Rest of Canada: 58

United States: 76

International: 164

In Canada:

40 teachers

9 doctors and nurses

32 volunteers

6 law enforcement personnel

9 faith leaders

3 foster parents

With a report from CTV Toronto's Tamara Cherry