Megaoperational in Argentina and 6 other countries.
As part of a simultaneous mega-operation that was carried out in seven countries, Argentine police forces carried out a series of raids in Buenos Aires territory, in the Province of Buenos Aires, La Pampa and Tucumán, with which they disrupted an international pedophile network. Only in Argentina there were 9 detainees, in a procedure with an international balance of 15 captured.
The action also took place in Hungary, Australia, Canada, the United States, Brazil and the Philippines. It happened after an alert from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which launched the operation called “Allies for Children III.”
In total, 33 places were raided and 176 items related to sexual abuse of children and adolescents were seized.
In Argentina, 4 people were arrested in the City of Buenos Aires, 3 in Santa Fe, 1 in the Province of Buenos Aires and 1 in Salta. The City Police, Federal Police, provincial police, Argentine Naval Prefecture and National Gendarmerie participated.
Meanwhile, there were 4 trapped in Ecuador, 1 in Puerto Rico and 1 in Costa Rica.
The investigation included field tasks, cyber patrolling over open networks (OSINT), technological tasks on the social network Telegram and the WhatsApp application, which made it possible to determine from where the defendants used the IP connections.
Some of the raids took place in the Buenos Aires district of Berazategui, in San Miguel de Tucumán and in the Pampas city of Intendente Alvear, where elements of interest to the cause were seized.
Among them, 58 video cassettes, 20 CDs, 8 VHS tapes, 14 cell phones, four tablets, two cameras, a notebook, a CPU, pen drives and memory cards, among others.
Raids in an operation against a pedophile ring.
“In total, more than 100 users of P2P networks distributed in Argentina and the rest of the countries were investigated,” said Juan Bautista Mahiques, attorney general of the City of Buenos Aires, who this Tuesday signed an agreement with the United States Embassy. to carry out coordinated activities in the workshops that the MPF carries out in Buenos Aires schools.
As explained by the authorities, the ICACCOPS and CPS platforms “play a crucial role in the detection of users in P2P networks involved in the distribution of material of Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children and Adolescents.”
By providing investigative leads, these platforms identify IP addresses associated with files of this type and become “an essential tool for thousands of investigators around the world struggling to provide assistance in similar cases.”
Operation “Allies for Children III” is the third international action conceived and coordinated from Argentina and aims to “combat the Sexual Exploitation of Boys, Girls and Adolescents.”
In August 2023, “Allies for Children I” was carried out, the first of these actions, in which 40 people were detained; and in December 2023, the International Operation “Allies for Children II” was carried out, with 13 detainees in Argentina and raids in 9 other countries: Dominican Republic, Brazil, Ecuador, United States, Chile, Paraguay, Panama, Costa Rica and Mexico.
