Caught Red-Handed, Child Pornography Operation Arrests 251 People in Brazil

05/18/2018 - 12h42

At least 251 people were caught red-handed with pornographic material on Thursday (17), in an operation to fight the dissemination of child pornography content on the Internet.

Civil police officers from 24 states and the Federal District went out on the streets to enforce 579 search and seizure warrants, in an action coordinated by the Ministry of Public Safety.

Suspects have been monitored for the past four months by the intelligence board of Senasp (National Public Safety Department) based on data collected in virtual environments, such as in the so-called "Deep Web"– internet area whose content is not reachable by traditional search engines and which hosts illegal and controversial content.

"All these targets had considerable amounts of files stored. The minimum found was 150 files downloaded, and no one downloads 150 files unintentionally. But some had 50 thousand, 80 thousand and up to more than 200 thousand files," said the coordinator of Senasp's cyber intelligence lab, Alessandro Barreto.

Among those arrested, there are cases of suspects who had already been jailed in previous operations-such as a nurse technician targeted by Peter Pan operation, conducted by the São Paulo civil police last year.

	Suamy Beydoun/AGIF
	At least 251 people were caught red-handed with pornographic material

"We have cases of women arrested, lawyers, health professionals, educators. They are people above suspicion, having different profiles and ages, from 20 to 60," said Barreto.

Current punishment for storing and sharing this type of files range from one to six years in prison. The production of child pornography images can lead to jail sentences ranging from four to eight years.

Translated by ANA BEATRIZ DEMARIA

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