NEWARK - A Ukrainian man has been charged in the most significant distribution ring of child pornography ever investigated in the United States, federal authorities in New Jersey said Monday.
The US attorney’s office said Maksym Shynkarenko, 33, from Kharkov, Ukraine, founded and operated a child pornography website in the Ukraine that had customers around the world and has resulted in 560 convictions throughout the United States alone.
Authorities extradited Shynkarenko over the weekend from Thailand, where he had been in custody since his 2009 arrest during a vacation to that country. Paul Fishman, the US attorney for the District of New Jersey, said Shynkarenko had been fighting extradition, which delayed the process.
Shynkarenko is charged in a 32-count indictment with child exploitation enterprise, advertising child pornography, transporting and shipping child pornography, and money laundering and other counts.
Much of the pornography that Shynkarenko allegedly dealt in depicted graphic sexual assaults and abuse of young children, in most cases by adults, Fishman said. His alleged network of websites was operational until 2008.
Prosecutors say Shynkarenko and two coconspirators from the Ukraine and one from Russia advertised and operated numerous child porn websites and sold access to them to clients worldwide, including customers in New Jersey. They allegedly concealed the charges with innocuous business names, such as Ad Soft, which served as fronts to conceal them from credit card companies.
Fishman says the ring’s website also operated under “Illegal.CP,’’ “The Sick Child Room,’’ and “Hottest Childporn Garden,’’ among other names.
“According to the indictment, Maksym Shynkarenko profited from the unspeakable abuse of thousands of innocent children by selling access to their suffering through his website,’’ Fishman said. “Distributors and consumers of child pornography create a market for sexual assaults on children, where the victimization of those children is refreshed with every download.’’
The case is being brought in New Jersey because agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division first located the site Illegal.CP in October 2005 during an investigation of an individual from Long Branch. The agents signed up for the site undercover, purchasing a 20-day subscription for $79.99. The site warned users that it was considered illegal in all countries, advising users to say, if ever questioned by police, that someone had stolen their credit card information and used it.
In addition to the convictions of the 560 American consumers from 47 states, people have been convicted in other countries, federal authorities said. Canada is the only other country prosecutors would name.
Federal authorities say those convicted included teachers, clergy, law enforcement, lawyers, doctors, coaches, and others who came in contact with minors.
Shynkarenko, wearing glasses, a close-cropped haircut, and green prison scrubs, made his first appearance Monday afternoon in a Newark federal court.
He could face up to life in prison if convicted on all counts.