Brazilian child porn raids see 251 people arrested and 500 warrants served
Investigators analysed more than one million files to identify the targets of Thursday’s police operation
Police in Brazil arrested 251 people on Thursday as they executed hundreds of search and seizure warrants for child pornography in the largest operation of its kind in the country.
Thousands of police fanned out in 24 states and the federal district to serve more than 500 warrants, the Ministry of Public Security said.
Public Security Minister Raul Jungmann said the operation was the largest involving civil police in Brazil’s history.
“This is without a doubt one of the most reprehensible, one of the most intolerable crimes against our children and adolescents,” he said at a news conference. “Because of this, within the law, we will be unrelenting in combating it. We will not stop here.”
During the searches, police detained people they said were in possession of or were sharing child pornography. By the late afternoon, 251 people had been taken into custody.
Investigators analysed more than one million files to identify the targets of Thursday’s operation, Jungmann said.
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Last year, American authorities shared with Brazilian investigators tools and methods for identifying such files online, said Carlos Afonso Goncalves, the director of intelligence at the National Secretariat of Public Security.
The targets of the investigation all had “considerable quantities” of electronic files containing images of child pornography in their possession, said Alessandro Barreto, coordinator of the cybercrimes lab at the secretariat.
The smallest number of downloaded files was 150.
