Category: Uncategorized

From 19^th to 21st July the GNR will be conducting operation “Moto” involving roadside checks of motorcycles, mopeds, tricycles and quad bikes. This is a national operation focusing on those areas where there is a higher risk of accidents involving these categories of vehicles.

The National Traffic Unit will be focusing on the use of helmets, dangerous driving, liability insurance, the condition of the tires and license plates, excess speed and driving under the influence of alcohol.

Traffic accidents with involvement of motorcycles result in a significant amount of all fatalities or serious injuries.

Fire alert message from the GNR

You can play a decisive role in preventing forest fires. Just last year occurred in Portugal, 23,801 fires burned a total area of ​​151 199 hectares!

Prevent fires. IN CASE OF FIRE CALL No. 112! From landlines, including public phones or mobile phones all calls are free.

A  foreigner aged 24, was arrested by the GNR of Albufeira on 18th July 2014 at Varandas do Mar, Albufeira for attempting to pass counterfeit currency.

The suspect attempted to pass twenty-five € 50 counterfeit banknotes in a hotel bar. Upon being approached by the GNR, he was arrested as was also found to be in possession of 284 doses of cocaine. The person was detailned pending appearence in court.

The Evening Telegraph in the UK has reported today (16^th July 2014) that several hundred suspected paedophiles including doctors, teachers and former police officers have been arrested in the biggest ever UK crackdown on obscene images of children.

The unprecedented six-month operation headed by the National Crime Agency (NCA) saw 660 people held for downloading and sharing the sickening pictures, and has already led to charges for serious sexual assault.

Those arrested included a doctor who had access to more than one million depraved pictures, was found to have met up with boys and kept sex aids and rope in the boot of his car.

Scout leaders and care workers were also among the huge number of people held across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the vast majority had never before aroused suspicion.

The massive investigation, involving all 45 British police forces, led to 431 children who were were in the “care, custody or control” of the suspects being “safeguarded”, including 127 who were identified as being at serious risk of harm.

Those arrested had used the internet or the so-called “dark web” – internet content that is not listed for access by normal search engines.

NCA deputy director general Phil Gormley said: “This operation has been about protecting children who are victims of, or might become victims of, sexual exploitation.

“Children are victimised not only when they are abused and the images first taken, but at every subsequent time that image is viewed by further offenders or distributed.”

Mr Gormley said he was “profoundly disappointed” that so many suspects had been arrested over this type of crime.

He said: “The alternative is not to look under the stone, and we cannot afford not to look under this stone.

“There are very significant volumes of people viewing this material in this country and abroad. We are going to need to understand as a society how we are going to confront this issue.

“We are not going to be able to arrest our way our of it. The numbers are significant, the volumes are huge.”

The NCA would not reveal the precise tactics it had used, but in previous child abuse cases officers have gone undercover and posed as potential victims to lull sex offenders into showing their true colours.

Chief Constable Simon Bailey, who is the national lead for child abuse investigations, said that police can track paedophiles online, even when using the dark web.

“Law enforcement now has the capability to see what people are doing,” he said. “Six hundred and sixty people have currently been arrested, there will be more arrests. There is a clear message to anybody using the internet to facilitate and to commit this type of crime that you are vulnerable.”

There were only 39 registered sex offenders among those arrested, with the majority able to avoid detection until now.

One of the suspects said he had been viewing images of child abuse for 30 years and had repeatedly travelled to south east Asia as a sex tourist.

When asked how hundreds of sex offenders had escaped detection until now, Mr Gormley said: “It’s a bit like a drugs problem. You need to look for it if you’re going to find it. People are unlikely to report this type of crime, you’re not going to have witnesses to it in the way that traditional crime types will.”

Two years ago the NCA estimated that 50,000 people in the UK were involved in sharing child abuse images online, and in the past 20 years the number of images available has soared from an estimated 10,000 to tens of millions.

Mr Gormley went on: “I am pretty appalled about what it says about human nature. Which is why we need to think very carefully about what this means and how we approach this type of offending behaviour, and the propensity of quite large numbers of people to view this material.”

So far officers have searched 833 properties and examined 9,172 computers, phones and hard drives.

The NCA said it built up “intelligence packages” on suspects and sent them to police forces across Britain before arrests were made.

Claire Lilley, head of online safety at the NSPCC, said: “Direct action like this sends a strong message to those who subject children to harrowing sexual assaults that they can and will be traced and prosecuted.

“But law enforcement agencies alone cannot deal with the vast problem of illegal images which continue to flood the market. Industry has to find inventive ways of blocking the flow of such horrendous pictures which are only produced through the suffering of defenceless children – many of who are not even old enough to go to school.

“So while this operation must be rightly applauded we should view it as yet another warning sign that far more needs to be done if we are to stem the sordid trade in these images, which are often used by those who go on to abuse children.”

On the morning of 15^th July 2014, GNR Monchique, in collaboration with the criminal investigation unit  GNR Portimão, detained a citizen of 54 years of age, indicted the crime of drug trafficking. 

The arrest was made after conducting an operation at a property located on the site of Tojeiro, a rural part of the parish of Marmelete, Municipality of Monchique.

The target site has in recent weeks has been the subject of complaints by the local community regarding illegal trafficking activities. During the operation a total of 15 cannabis plants, approximately 1.5 m tall and weighing 15 kg were seized.

The detainee is to appear at the Judicial District Court of Monchique, for application of measures pending trial.

Investigations will continue by the criminal investigation unit GNR Portimão.

According to combined figures from the GNR, PSP and PJ police, violent crime has further decreased by 2.2% in the first 3 months of 2014 compared with the same period last year. The decrease equates to 105 cases.

This is on top of a 9.5 %decrease in violent crime that was recorded in 2013 compared with the previous year.

On 10th July in a combined operation between the GNR Costal Control Unit and the Spanish police a total of 1.5 tones of hashish was seized and a person was arrested near Isla Cristina, Vila Real de  Santo Antonio.

At around 0720 hrs a semi rigid inflatable boat was seen by the GNR on the Guariano and they contact the Spanish police who chased the vessel using a Spanish police boat and a helicopter. The suspect boat was intercepted and 1.5 tons of hashish was found hidden on board. Another vessel was also seized close by and a person arrested.

The person has a previous criminal conviction for international drug trafficking.

 

A man and a woman, aged between 40 and 50 years, were found shot dead in Belverde in Seixal north of Portugal. 

One of the two a woman was found dead due to shooting with a firearm, in a forest area in Belverde, Seixal. Later a man aged around 50 years was also found dead having been shot about 50 meters from the first victim. The bodies were discovered on 9^th July.

According to a PSP source, the weapon used was 7.65 mm, which was found at the scene. There are no known circumstances of the occurrence, although the police are working on the possibility of murder-suicide. The relationship between the two victims has yet to be established.

Police in Setúbal confirmed to Lusa that the first ambulance arrived in the evening of Wednesday, while the second was called during the night.

The two bodies were collected by firefighters and transported from Amora to the morgue of the Hospital Garcia de Orta, Almada.

The case is now being investigated by the Judicial Police.

The Judicial Police’s, National Anti-Corruption Unit (UNCC), under an investigation led by prosecutors, Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DIAP) have completed an investigation into corrupt practices by ENT doctors and medical employees.

The 80 defendants are alleged to have received commissions in the form of cash, vacation trips and goods offered by three medical laboratories to prescribe medical devices of certain brands supplied by these companies.

The commissions were calculated by the number of prescriptions made ​​by doctors. The investigation focused on the period from 2007 to 2012 and of the amounts involved exceeded €400,000. This case involves both private and public health workers and representatives of the companies concerned. This investigation involved the cooperation of the Ministry of Health

It is reported in the Guardian newspaper that Airline passengers entering and leaving the UK on potentially any routes, including transatlantic ones and those connecting with mainland Europe, will be expected to be show that electronic devices in their hand luggage can be powered up, British authorities announced Tuesday 8^th July  in a tightening of aviation security.

In response to warnings of a “credible threat”, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced on Sunday that passengers using airports with direct flights to the US could be made to switch on their mobile phones and other electronic devices to prove to security officials that the devices do not contain explosives.

Britain’s transport department said last week that extra security measures at UK airports were not expected to cause “significant disruption” to passengers, but on Tuesday it announced that passengers on some routes to and from the UK might now be required to show electronic devices in hand luggage could be powered up. The move was being taken “in line with US advice”, the department said.

While the department refused to discuss what routes could be affected, it is understood that the new security criteria would extend to all flights between Britain and other European destinations.

Travellers unable to demonstrate that devices such as laptops and phones can be powered up face not being allowed to bring the devices on to aircraft.

Security experts have told CNN: the changes were based on new intelligence on terror groups trying to build new types of improvised explosives that are harder to detect.  ”While there was no specific threat prompting the enhancements, U.S. officials are concerned about the possibility that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula might develop bombs which could pass through current security measures undetected.”

The news comes after a recent report that Apple iPhones and Samsung Galaxy devices in particular would face additional attention. The report by Reuters noted that the scrutiny would apply to passengers flying to the U.S., but the TSA does not mention these brands in its official statement.

Cell phone explosives are nothing new, one of the most well known cases of a cell phone bomb was the Jan. 5, 1996 killing of Palestinian suicide bomb mastermind Yahya Ayyash.  Ayyash was killed after answering a cell phone packed with explosives.  These new TSA screening procedures though, suggest that officials are concerned that terrorists may have found a way to pack electronics devices with explosives in a way that avoids detection.