The 2004 Ukrainian child pornography raids occurred a few months before the First
Orange Revolution
The Orange Revolution ( uk, Помаранчева революція, translit=Pomarancheva revoliutsiia) was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate afterm ...
, when police in
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
raided a softcore
child pornography
Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a ...
ring operating in the cities of
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.
Kyi ...
,
Kharkiv
Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.[Simferopol
Simferopol () is the second-largest city in the Crimean Peninsula. The city, along with the rest of Crimea, is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, and is considered the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. However, it is ...]
. The ring had operated since 2001 and used a modeling agency as a
front
Front may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film
* ''The Front'', 1976 film
Music
* The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...
.
The Crime Investigation Department of the Ministry for the Interior conducted the raids. The deputy head of the department, Vitaly Yarema, said that the bank accounts of the agency, containing hundreds of thousands of dollars, had been frozen.
The raids were conducted after a joint investigation between Ukrainian police and
Interpol
The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO; french: link=no, Organisation internationale de police criminelle), commonly known as Interpol ( , ), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and cri ...
. In 2005, the
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
announced that there was further cooperation between Ukrainian police and other law enforcement agencies internationally.
The investigation following the raids was completed by 6 April 2005.
References
External links
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* {{cite news , url = http://www.rusawm.com/news.php?cod=392 , script-title=ru:Под видом модельного агентства для детей в Харькове работала порностудия, trans-title=Pornography studio operated out of Kharkov under disguise of a children modeling agency , work = rusawm.com , date = 8 December 2004 , accessdate=5 February 2006, language=Russian, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080110163323/http://www.rusawm.com/news.php?cod=392, archivedate=10 January 2008, url-status=dead
child pornography raids
Child pornography crackdowns
Crime in Ukraine
Mass media in Ukraine