This week, the BBC premiered a documentary about child sexual abuse crimes titled The Darkest Web (The Darkest Internetin free translation). Among the cases covered is that of Portuguese pedophile Nuno Melo, sentenced to a 25-year prison sentence.
Researchers Greg Squire and Pete Manning are central figures in the documentary, as they are experts in tracking down people who sexually abuse children and sharing images of these crimes. online. One of them accompanied the Judicial Police (PJ) at the time of the arrest of the Portuguese citizen, who lived in Águeda.
At the time, intense online investigation work was carried out to identify the then suspect, who used the nickname Twinkle on internet forums. In 2017, the PJ received information from the Australian police, who had arrested a suspect for pedophilia crimes and seized content from the forum Baby Heart. Among the collected material there were publications in Portuguese and references to an address associated with a national telecommunications operatorwhich constituted the first indication that the person responsible for the network could be Portuguese.
The PJ then integrated a task force international, involving Interpol, Europol and the North American agency Homeland Security Investigationsspecialized in digital research. Investigators carefully analyzed several details, including the suspect’s writing style. Twinkle He wrote in Portuguese in a very specific way, using typically national expressions, such as “it cost us eyes”difficult to reproduce using automatic translators.
Using international databases, the tool files were cross-referenced Trace an Object from Europol — which identifies objects and items of clothing associated with child abuse — with photographs collected from social media. After a thorough analysis of all the seized images, investigators came up with the identity of the suspect, who was arrested in June 2017.. He was caught red-handed with two children, all naked. At the time, she was 27 years old and lived with her parents.
The relevance of the work carried out by the Scientific Police Laboratory (LPC) in this process led to the Judiciary Police receiving an international award. The case was also presented in Europol initiatives as an example of successful criminal investigation and international cooperation.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office charged the defendant with 583 crimes of sexual abuse of children and 73,577 crimes of pornography of minors. The sentence was handed down by the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon, in December 2019. Nuno Melo was sentenced to 25 years in prisona sentence he is serving at the Carregueira Prison Establishment, in Sintra.
amanda.lima@dn.pt
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