Brazil conducts large-scale, cyber-crime operation to fight child porn

Latin America

It was the largest operation against child pornography ever conducted in Brazil. Authorities claimed it was the biggest, single-day crackdown ever carried out in the world. 

More than 2,500 police were deployed across 24 states. In all, 251 suspects were arrested and more than one million computer files seized. They also confiscated hundreds of computers and cell phones.

CGTN’s Paulo Cabral reports from Sao Paulo.

The operation in Sao Paulo was coordinated by the head of the homicide division of the state police, Elizabete Sato.

“We are advancing, but still need better results on a national level. We are still far from breaking the back of this activity. This issue, abusing children and teenagers for porn, is not only in Brazil. It’s a global problem,” Sato said.

The size of the operation in Brazil speaks to the extent and the reach of this crime. Some expert have said the global nature of child porn makes it much harder to fight.

The investigation began four years ago, and revealed the depth of Brazil’s involvement in this illicit, international industry.

“We didn’t know the scale of this problem in Brazil until an investigation of the ‘deep web’ in 2014. Until then, we thought Brazil was only a consumer. If we had more operational capacity, we would have more targets and would have made more arrests,” Fernanda Domingues, the federal prosecutor of the Cyber crime Office said.

But the coordinator of a children’s rights NGO sees important gains despite the challenges.

“Brazil has made important advances not only in the investigation of sex crimes against children and teenagers but we have also improved legislation on this matter. Several crimes against children and teenagers, like exploiting them sexually for profit, are now felonies punished with tougher sentences,” said Denise Cesario, Executive Manager for Abrinq Foundation.

A large part of Brazil’s network of child porn is now down but much more work is needed to break the larger web. More perpetrators of child porn are no doubt already busy, trying to build new connections.