A joint operation by Brazil and the United States has led to the arrests of 113 people suspected of creating, producing and leaking child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online.
The US government agency US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Brazilian Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP) made the arrests in the US and South America between November 2 and November 6. The searches and arrests were made as part of the seventh phase of Operation Protected Childhood (OPC).
OPC VII, which targets distributors and producers of child across the Americas, was executed in coordination with ICE HSI’s Cyber Crimes Center (C3) and partners in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Panama.
In the United States, the HSI offices in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee, California, Colorado, and Florida issued 13 search warrants related to child exploitation incidents and made nine arrests for related offenses.
HSI Raleigh (North Carolina) and the Cary, North Carolina, Police Department arrested a suspect on November 6 after receiving a tip from C3 that the suspect was posting child sexual exploitation material in chat rooms on the social media app Kik. The subsequent investigation uncovered hundreds of photos of minors, including nude photos of the suspect’s children.
A search warrant was also issued for another man in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, after Kik Inc. reported that someone had used site to share nude and other indecent photos of children.
In Panama City, Florida, police arrested a suspect after receiving a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Childrenfor sharing inappropriate content through Facebook, Messenger.
A warrant was also issued for a man in California who was using Twitter to send photos of children.
These and dozens of other arrests were made under OPC VII. The OPC was launched in March 2015 by HSI Brazil in partnership with the MJSP Cyber Lab in Brazil to improve the effectiveness of investigations into child sexual abuse and exploitation. Since 2017, the program has helped to make 781 criminal arrests and issue 1,383 search and seizure warrants.
Source: InfoSecurity Magazine
