Brasília, 03/28/2019 - Under the coordination of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP), Light Operation in Childhood 4 was started early this morning (28), with the objective of identifying crimes of abuse and sexual exploitation against children and adolescents committed through the Internet.

The Minister of Justice and Public Security, Sergio Moro, the Secretary of Integrated Operations, Rosalvo Ferreira Franco, the Director of the Seopi Operations Office, Cesar Augusto Martinez, and the Coordinator of the Cyber Intelligence Laboratory of Seopi's Intelligence Office, Chief of Police Alessandro Barreto, will hold a press conference on the operation, at the Ministry, 11:00 am.

The integrated operation involves the Civil Police of the Federal District and 26 other states. Search warrants and seizure of files containing content related to crimes of sexual exploitation are being carried out. In several places, arrests are being made in the act of committing the offense for the storage of illicit content.

In all, more than 1,500 police officers were deployed to carry out the mission. The action is triggered by mutual cooperation between the Intelligence Director and the Operations Director, both of which are linked to the Integrated Operations Secretariat of the Ministry. The United States Embassy in Brazil also collaborated throughUS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), providing training courses that supported the four phases of Light Operation in Childhood.

The targets were identified by the team of the Cyber Intelligence Laboratory of the Secretariat of Integrated Operations of the MJSP, based on information collected in a digital environment. The content with sufficient evidence of authorship and materiality has been transmitted to the Civil Police - in particular, police stations for the protection of children and adolescents and repression of cybercrimes. In turn, the police stations started police inquiries and requested the Judiciary to issue search and seizure warrants.

The penalty for anyone holding such content ranges from 1 to 4 years in prison, 3 to 6 years in prison for sharing and 4 to 8 years in prison for producing content related to the crimes of sexual exploitation.

Additional information will be announced at the press conference (T10) at the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, in Brasília (DF), on Thursday (28) at 11:00 am.

Operation Light in Childhood is in its fourth phase. The results of the previous ones were as follows:

Light in Childhood 1 - October 20, 2017. 157 search warrants and seizure of computers and digital files were completed. They arrested 108 people.

Light in Childhood 2 - May 17, 2018. The State Civil Police completed 579 search warrants, resulting in the arrest of 251 people.

Light in Childhood 3 - November 22, 2018. The operation started in Brazil and Argentina with the fulfilment of 110 search warrants, resulting in the arrest of 46 people.