Bolivia child sexual abuse investigations – wider crackdown

In early July, Bolivian prosecutors released emails and secret letters showing that the Jesuit generalate in Rome was aware of systematic sexual abuse of Guaraní girls in Charagua and had directed the concealment of related documentation. The material indicated that senior Jesuit officials, including former and current prefects, knowingly preserved abusive diaries, photographs and videos while failing to trigger police investigations.

A week later, Bolivian authorities, working with French and Brazilian investigators, arrested two suspects in Caranavi as part of the multinational “Alianza 22” operation. The raid seized electronic devices and evidence of a broader network that produced, stored and distributed child sexual‑abuse material, rescuing four victims and linking the operation to at least 22 children. The crackdown highlighted the use of digital forensics and cross‑border cooperation to combat child exploitation, marking a shift from exposing institutional cover‑up to active law‑enforcement disruption of an international abuse ring.

In July 2026 the effort expanded into a coordinated international wave of raids. The “Gran Fénix 45” operation in Ecuador identified 715 online accounts and led to ten arrests across seven provinces, while a joint Interpol‑led action in Bolivia repeated the seizure of large illegal file caches and detained two men in Caranavi, rescuing four more children and confirming roughly 22 additional victims aged 3 to 14. In La Paz a 25‑year‑old man was arrested for managing 18 online groups disseminating child sexual content, also resulting in four rescues. Parallel cases in Spain saw a Cantabria court hand down a five‑year sentence for storing over a thousand child‑pornography files, and police in Palma de Mallorca seized thousands of illegal files and more than 200 GB of material from a Venezuelan national. These operations underscore an escalating global focus on dismantling child‑exploitation networks through digital forensics, multi‑nation cooperation, and synchronized law‑enforcement actions.