Month: January 2023

Nearly 10,000 crimes, 17 arrests and 18,690 administrative offenses issued for abandonment and mistreatment of animals in five years

Lisbon, Jan 31, 2023 (Lusa) – The police have arrested 17 people for abandoning or mistreating pets and have registered almost 10,000 crimes in the last five years, together with 18,690 administrative offences issues reveals data sent to Lusa by the PSP and GNR.

The 17 arrests were made, between 2018 and 2022, by the Public Security Police, which arrested 15 people for mistreatment and two for abandoning pets.

The year with the most arrests for mistreatment of companion animals was 2021, when there were six, followed by 2019 and 2022, with four each, and in 2018 one person was arrested.

The PSP indicates that the arrests for abandoning animals were made in 2019 and 2020, with one in each year.

Data sent to the Lusa agency indicate that the PSP and the National Republican Guard recorded 9,732 crimes for abandonment or mistreatment of animals between 2018 and 2022.

The PSP also reports that, in five years, it recorded 1,615 crimes of animal abandonment and 2,278 for situations of mistreatment, in a total of 4,402.

While the GNR accounted for 5,330 crimes, 3,385 of which were for mistreatment of animals and 1,945 for abandonment, with this type of crime recorded in 2022 the highest value in the last five years.

The GNR recorded 1,195 crimes for abandonment and mistreatment of pets last year, 1,008 in 2021, 1,030 in 2020, 1,089 in 2019, and 1,008 in 2018.

The PSP, on the other hand, registered a decrease in 2020 and 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic, having increased again in 2022. Last year, the PSP counted 865 crimes, in 2021 there were 833, in 2020 there were 801, in 2019 there were 952 and in 2018 there were 951.

The GNR also reports that it raised 18,690 administrative offenses for this offense in the last five years, with the highest number in 2018 (5,393), followed by 2019 (5,107), 2022 (3,357), 2020 (2,587) and 2021 (2,246).

This security force refers that the crimes of mistreatment are provided for in the Penal Code and the facts are communicated to the Public Ministry and the offenders identified.

According to the GNR, dogs are the animals that register the highest incidence of abuse and abandonment and generally the collected animals are delivered to the official collection centers (CRO) under municipal or intermunicipal management, and are also delivered, on certain occasions, to other associations.

The GNR also receives complaints, which can be made through the SOS Ambiente e Território line 808 200 520, www.gnr.pt (Serviços/SOS Ambiente) or by email sepna@gnr.pt , having registered 20,823 complaints between 2018 and 2022 , after increasing every year.

The PSP also has an Animal Defence Line (defensanimal@psp.pt ) to receive complaints, having registered 12,175 complaints in the last five years, in a growing trend. This line received 2,149 complaints in 2018, 2,278 in 2019, 2,362 in 2020, 2,462 in 2021 and 2,924 last year.

The PSP states that these complaints include not only criminal situations of abandonment and mistreatment, but all occurrences related to the welfare of the animal and suspicious situations that subsequently require inspection and investigation by the police.

The most common complaints that reach the PSP through this line are complaints from neighbours about the dogs that are barking on the balcony, the patio that is dirty and has an unpleasant odour, the owners who are absent without leaving water or food for the animals, walking the dog without a leash and the aggressiveness of animals.

Mistreatment of companion animals has been a crime since 2014 and several people have already been convicted in the first instance.

However, the Constitutional Court has already annulled these convictions on the grounds that they lack constitutional coverage.

Recently, the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Constitutional Court asked for the declaration of unconstitutionality of the norm that criminalizes with a fine or imprisonment anyone who, without legitimate reason, kills or mistreats pets.

Bedrooms

More than 78 million messages (SMS), exclusively scheduling for vaccination of users eligible for vaccination against covid-19, have been sent in the last two years, the Ministry of Health indicated this Sunday.

In a statement, the Shared Services of the Ministry of Health (SPMS) recall that the first call for the covid-19 vaccine, through messages (SMS) from number 2424, was sent on January 29, 2021.

“In these two years, more than 78 million SMS, exclusively for scheduling, were sent to users eligible for vaccination at each stage of the process,” say SPMS, stressing that the SMS call represented “a great technological advance”.

In the most critical period of the pandemic, the scheduling functionality was being progressively made available to the health units of the country, making the SMS number 2424 the preferred form of call for vaccination.

“For scheduling, the contacts used are those contained in the National Register of Users (RNU) of the National Health Service, which provides centralized information to all information systems,” the SPMS also explained.

According to the SPMS, in addition to scheduling, other messages related to the covid-19 vaccination process have been sent over the last two years, translating into about 111 million SMS.

“Currently, it is possible to carry out the self-scheduling of the vaccine through the SNS 24 Portal, giving the possibility of choosing the most convenient day and place,” explains the SPMS.

For this same reason, this system has meanwhile been extended to the call for other acts, such as screenings, allowing greater speed in contact with the population, the entity concludes.

“The Directorate-General for Health informs that its official website – www.dgs.pt – was the target of a cyberattack that prevented access to the data and services usually available,” reads a note from the DGS.

In the same note, sent Saturday night, the DGS indicated that the ‘site’ was already operational.

The Directorate-General for Health also said that it “contacted the National Cybersecurity Center, which is evaluating and monitoring the situation, in order to take measures to mitigate the impact of this attack”.

This information, adds the DGS, “will be updated whenever relevant”.

The Expresso newspaper also reported on Saturday that the Internet addresses of the DGS and the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon have been “unoperational since, at least, early Saturday afternoon, following an attack by a group of Russian cyberactivists”.

“During an investigation into qualified thefts inside homes, which began in January 2022 by the Criminal Investigation Brigade of the PSP in Tavira, a joint police operation was carried out aimed at dismantling a group of individuals who acted as an organised crime group with the objective of carrying out thefts in residences, in the eastern Algarve area, in houses located in the bordering areas of urban agglomerations, taking advantage of the temporary absence of the owners at the end of the day and the beginning of the night”, explain the GNR and PSP in a statement.

“Since the PSP and the GNR were investigating several cases of theft in which there were strong indications that they had been carried out by the same group, joint investigations were launched that allowed the suspects to be arrested after having committed the theft to a house in the Quarteira area”, added the security forces.

Following the action, four searches were carried out, two at home and two in vehicles in the municipality of Faro and in the city of Olhão, which made it possible to recover various stolen material, namely large sums of money, pieces of gold and other precious metals, as well as various objects recovered from the interior of the criminals homes.

HOW TO CHECK IF STOLEN ITEMS BELONG TO YOU

Taking into account the high volume of material seized, namely watches and pieces of jewellery (rings, earrings, medals, necklaces, among others) in gold and other metals and precious stones, the authorities ask “all citizens with residences in the Algarve who have been the target of house theft (with similar items stolen) and WHO DID NOT MAKE A CRIME COMPLAINT AT THE TIME, to go to the PSP in Faro (see picture) Rua da Policia da Seguranca Publica 32, 8000-408 Faro to report the crime, with the aim to recover stolen objects that are now seized”.

If not sure/further details call PSP Command Faro– 289 899 899.

Source; GNR/PSP Press release

The group responsible for the HIVE ransomware was one of the most relevant cybercriminal groups worldwide, being suspected of having attacked Portuguese entities as diverse as hospital units, laboratory analysis companies, municipalities, transport/aviation companies, hotel units, technology companies, among others.

This group, after encrypting the victims’ data, demanded a ransom so that the data and information would not be published on the HIVE group’s website, hosted on the Dark Web.