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The Judicial Police, through the National Unit to Combat Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs, under an operation that took place in mid-October, arrested two Ukranian nationals and seized a sail boat, transporting about 600 kgs of cocaine. It is estimated that the drugs are worth about €19 million

Operation, which took place in international waters off Sagres, with the collaboration of the Portuguese Navy and Air Force.

It is understood that information about the shipment was passed to the Portuguese authorities by the USA. The vessel named “Cocuyo” was reportedly flying the Union Jack flag and was boarded by officers from the PJ and Navy.

The vessel was escorted to Portimao where it was seized together with the drugs. The detainees, aged 39 and 45 years, have appeared in court with an application to be remanded in custody

This operation is part of an ongoing strategy for identifying, combating and dismantling of organized criminal networks that have been using this kind of modus operandi for smuggling cocaine to Europe. Coordination rests with the “Centre for Maritime Analysis and Operations – Narcotics (MAOC-N) with the cooperation of the Office of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Lisbon.

Figures from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) published on 16^th October 2014 show that, for the offences it covers, there were an estimated 7.1 million incidents of crime against households and resident adults (aged 16 and over) in England and Wales for the year ending June 2014. This represents a 16% decrease compared with the previous year’s survey, and is the lowest estimate since the survey began in 1981.

The CSEW covers a broad range of victim based crimes and includes crimes which do not come to the attention of the police. Decreases were evident for all major crime types compared with the previous year; violence saw a 23% fall, criminal damage fell by 20%, and theft offences decreased by 12%.

In contrast, police recorded crime shows no overall change from the previous year, with 3.7 million offences recorded in the year ending June 2014. Prior to this, police recorded crime figures have shown year on year reductions since 2003/04.

The renewed focus on the quality of crime recording is likely to have prompted improved compliance with national standards in some police forces, leading to more crimes being recorded. This is thought to have particularly affected the police recorded figures for violence against the person (up 11%) and public order offences (up 6%).

The number of police recorded shoplifting offences showed a 5% increase compared with the previous year. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this rise is more likely to be a result of a genuine increase in crime rather than any change in recording practice.

There was also an increase in the volume of fraud recorded (8% year on year), though it is difficult to judge to what extent that reflected an improvement in recording practices, an increase in public reports or a rise in actual criminality. It is thought that levels of fraud are thought to be substantially under-reported and thus these figures simply provide a measure of such offences brought to the attention of the authorities.

Sexual offences recorded by the police saw a 21% rise from the previous year and continues the pattern seen in recent publications. Current, rather than historic, offences account for the majority of the increase in sexual offences (73% within the last 12 months). Despite these recent increases, it is known that sexual offences are subject to a high degree of under-reporting.

The CSEW is a face-to-face victimisation survey in which people resident in households in England and Wales are asked about their experiences of a selected number of offences in the 12 months prior to the interview. It covers both children aged 10-15 and adults aged 16 and over, but does not cover those living in group residences (such as care homes, student halls of residence and prisons), or crimes against commercial or public sector bodies.

For the population and offence types it covers, the CSEW is a valuable source for providing robust estimates on a consistent basis over time, as it has a consistent methodology and is unaffected by changes in levels of reporting to the police, recording practice or police activity.

 

 

On 17^th October 2014 agents of the Spanish National Police arrested a 32-year-old resident in Cordoba city, Spain on suspicion of corruption of minors, possession and distribution of child pornography, fraud threats and telecommunications offences. 

The arrested person contacted dozens of children contacted through social networks and through grooming techniques, and enticed them to submit photos of themselves in a sexual nature. In the search of his home investigators found about 500,000 images of children spread over different computers. He had hacked into the wifi networks from neighbours to chat with his victims and try to avoid detection by police.

Report of a mother

The origin of the research was the complaint filed in May 2014 by the mother of one of the victims who, by chance, discovered as their minor child held a conversation in a private chat in a social network with a young, apparently of the same age, which had sent photographs and videos of sexually explicit nature of himself and his younger brother. Faced with the possibility that he was the subject of a case of grooming, he opted immediately make it known to the police.

Police agents launched a complex investigation, which initially focused on the inspection of the profile on this social network of person with whom he had shared the images with sexual content. The researchers could see that in the said profile had added another 80 contacts, all of them male minors.

40 photos obtained under the province of Córdoba

In parallel and in order to locate other possible victims, officers were able to determine that 40 minors living in Cordoba province, had also sent him intimate images. The researchers contacted them and found that in all cases the way he interacted with the children was the same.

Potential victims accepted the friend request suspecting it was a girl chatting via social network, requesting photographs and videos with highly sexual content. When he used those images to blackmail and threaten the children.

Given the seriousness of the matter under investigation and the large number of underage victims, police acted with urgency to identify the culprit and prevent further casualties. They were finally able to determine the identity of the alleged perpetrator, a 32-year-old, who was a top technician with certification of telecommunications and computer systems and other networks on the Internet. Police also proceeded to perform a search of his home for more than six hours in which agents inspected three computers in which abundant paedophile pornographic material was found, resulting in his immediate arrest.

Hack Wi-Fi networks

The fact that the offender is a person with high computer skills and hacking techniques greatly complicated the investigation. The arrested person tried to protect his identity through the  unlawful use of wireless networks in your neighbourhood.

From a first analysis of the computers, the researchers could see that the detainee was the creator and user adopting three other profiles, two of which according to his own statements, had been used for the same acts. In just one profile the culprit managed to add 383 youths. It has also been found that in another recently created profile of a popular social network, included about 40 children and friends, many of whom had already submitted their images by email.

About 500,000 paedophiles files

In the initial inspection of computers around 500,000 image files and video were located, with the vast majority of paedophilia, which are being reviewed to locate potential victims, since some of them the had obtained a sharing program files. Agents continue scrutinizing the wealth of information seized in the house search, and as yet do not have an exact number of children who have been victims of these events, although based on all the profiles used by the person arrested and the time it took to play this type of criminal activity, the figure could exceed 2,000 children in Spain and 10,000 worldwide.

The research was carried out by agents of technological crime group of the Provincial Brigade of the Judicial Police of Córdoba.

On the 17th of October 2014 at 1100 hrs the Graduation Ceremony of the 10th Training Course for PSP Agents (CFA) took place at the PSP Police Training School  in Torres Novas.

A total of 10,686 persons had applied for the course. Of these, 100 students, 93 males and 7 females) were admitted, all completing the course successfully. The course had a workload of 1,180 hours including 476 hours of practical classes.

The ceremony was presided by S.ª Excellency the Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr. Miguel Macedo, S.ª Excellency the National Director of Public Security Police, Superintendent Louis Farinha and S.ª Excellency the Director of Police Training School, Superintendent Abilio Vieira Pinto.

The new agents will be posted atthe PSP Metropolitan Command Lisbon (50), as well as the District of Aveiro Command PSP (4), Braga (7), Bragança (2), Castelo Branco (3), Coimbra (5) Évora (2), Left (4), Leiria (6), Portalegre (2), Santarém (5), Viana do Castelo (3), Vila Real (3) and Viseu (4).

On 16^th October 2014, the Judicial Police, through the Department of Criminal Investigation in Portimão, identified and arrested a foreigner for suspected drug trafficking.

The investigation led to the seizure of several items that were part of several greenhouses installed on the property of the detainee, situated in a secluded location in the Lagos area.

At the time of arrest 39 meters of cannabis, 2.42Kg of dried cannabis and 17gr of pollen hashish were seized.

The detainee aged 25 years of age will appear before the judicial authorities for application of reporting/remand conditions.

On the afternoon of 16^th October 2014 the GNR Territorial Criminal Research Unit Faro detained a Faro citizen aged 32 years for drug trafficking. Following a one month investigation, the GNR conducted an operation at a cannabis plantation in Soalheira in the municipality of São Brás.

During the operation a total of 4782 grams of cannabis flowers (the part the plant where it is most concentrated), plus 8 cannabis plants in the growth phase and 175 grams of seeds and crushed cannabis leaf were seized.

The home search conducted in connection with this operation resulted in the seizure of a small amount of hashish, a replica of a firearm (Walther P99), three bladed weapons (machetes) and various objects related to the cultivation of the narcotics, including polystyrene plates (used to sow the plants) and part of a sophisticated irrigation system for the plantation.

As a result of the operation a person aged 63 years was arrested, who owned and was resident at the site. The GNR strongly believes that the cultivation and selection of flowers (with a high commercial value) was intended to be sold.

The arrest and seizure is a result of ongoing operations aimed at combating this type crime, this being the twelfth seizure of cannabis plants made ​​in the area

The Judicial Police, through the Department of Criminal Investigation of Leiria, has conducted a major police operation in the areas of Torres Novas and the Junction resulting in the arrest of 12 persons for passing counterfeit €50 bank notes. During the operation nine houses were searched being identified during an investigation lasting over two years.

Those arrested comprise six men and six women aged from consisted of six men and six women, aged between 17 and 56 years all unemployed. Three persons were also detained in connection with drug trafficking, possession of prohibited weapons.

The PSP and GNR provided significant cooperation in the organization of appropriate security measures during the implementation of the police operation

According to reports in the media this morning report this morning (11^th October) users who had been accessing the service via a third-party app, and not the official Snapchat app, had their images intercepted. Other reports state that hackers stole up to 200,000 such images and uploaded these. As around half of the users are aged between 13 and 17, there is concern that many of the images may be of children.

Snapchat said its servers “were never breached”. The company added: “Snapchatters were victimised by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users’ security. Snapchat notifies a sender if the recipient screenshots a photo. But if the recipient of a photos uses a third-party app, he or she can save the photo without the sender’s knowledge. As such, Snapchat actively looks for and reports third-party apps that bypass Snapchat’s automatic photo destruction”

“We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed.” However, security researchers said Snapchat had to take more responsibility over user data.

Although the download has since gone offline, photos have appeared elsewhere on the internet. Hackers have threatened to post thousands more images. However, some doubted the authenticity of the images, suggesting many of them were duplicates or “fake”.

Snapchat is a messaging app that allows the sharing of videos and images that “disappear” after a short period of time, usually within 1-10 seconds.

According to various reports hackers had boasted of having access to 13 gigabytes’ (GB) worth of pictures that had been intercepted over a number of years.

Speculation as to the source of the leak has pointed towards two third-party, unauthorised services that offered the ability to save Snapchat messages permanently. It suspected that at least one such service was keeping a database of all the pictures and videos that had passed through it.

Snapchat notifies a sender if the recipient screenshots a photo. But if the recipient of a photos uses a third-party app, he or she can save the photo without the sender’s knowledge. As such, Snapchat actively looks for and reports third-party apps that bypass Snapchat’s automatic photo destruction, the spokeswoman said.

 

Safe Communities Algarve Comment

In January, an apparently ethical hacker released 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers in an attempt to prompt a Snapchat security review, and earlier this month Snapchat accounts were effectively hacked by a weight-loss spam service.

It is important to remember once something is on-line it remains on-line, and children in particular need to be aware of the consequences of this fact. Parental advice is the key to educating children over the safe use of social media and the internet.

The Judicial Police, through the Board of the South, reported on 9^th October that have identified and arrested a man for the alleged commission of a crime of rape that occurred at the beginning of August, in the municipality of Loulé.

The man aged 36 years handcuffed a woman aged 64 years and led here to clearing and, under threat of a weapon forced her into having sex with him.

The detainee, will be subject to judicial interrogation to determine remand/reporting conditions.

New figures released by the WHO show that more than 8,000 people have now been infected with the disease and 3,879 have died. The vast majority of deaths have been in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

In Spain yesterday (8^th October) a dog named Excalibur who belonged to an Ebola-infected nurse was destroyed, even as protesters and animal rights activists surrounded the Madrid home of the nurse and her husband. An online petition calling for the dog’s life to be spared had drawn hundreds of thousands of signatures.

The furor came amid questions about whether dogs can get and transmit the disease.

In the United States, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Thomas Skinner, said Wednesday that studies had shown that dogs can have an immune response to Ebola, meaning that they can become infected. But he said there had been no reports of dogs or cats developing Ebola symptoms or passing the disease to other animals or to people.

The death of Excalibur, a 12-year-old rescue dog, was confirmed to reporters by Javier Rodríguez, an official from Madrid’s regional government. The body is expected to be cremated.

The nurse’s husband had pleaded publicly with officials in Madrid to change their minds about destroying the dog. He told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that there was no indication that Excalibur had been infected with Ebola. The nurse has been identified as María Teresa Romero Ramos.

The fate of the dog ignited a frenzy online. More than 390,000 people signed the petition to save his life. By comparison, about 150,000 people have signed a petition urging the Food and Drug Administration to fast-track research on a potential vaccine and treatment for Ebola.

Twitter erupted with pleas in both English and Spanish to save Excalibur’s life. Then, after Excalibur was killed, came posts using the hashtag #RIPExcalibur. Some also suggested that more attention was being focused on the dog than on Ebola’s human victims.

The Spanish nurse was the first person to become infected outside West Africa. An aid worker has died in Australia following a visit to West Africa.

A World Health Organization (WHO) adviser has warned that more Ebola cases can be expected among medical staff, even in developed countries