Mauro Marcelo de Lima e Silva is a Brazilian police officer. Graduated in Law in 1983, he joined the Civil Police of São Paulo one year later. He later was sent to the United States, graduating in Criminal Justice by the Virginia University and in Cybersecurity by the FBI National Academy.
Back in Brazil, he became known for solving cybercrimes. He was responsible for the first arrest for a crime committed via e-mail in Brazil, and several police departments asked for help in similar cases. In 1999, he was chief of the Sector of Investigation for High Technology Crimes (SICAT) of the Civil Police of São Paulo, the first National department responsible for tackling cybercrime. He was notorious for recruiting young hackers to help him out, as computers were just becoming mainstream on Brazil. He was known for solving cases very quickly and worked in many notorious crimes.
On 13 July 2004, he was appointed by the president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as the General-Director of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN). There, he was known for being more transparent and talking more to the media compared to his predecessors, and he named his gestion as "New ABIN". He suffered resistance from the Army sector for being the first non-military director from the agency. He resigned on 13 July 2005, after calling congressmen as "beasts" for exposing one ABIN agent for clarifications of their investigation against Correios, that resulted in the Correios CPMI.
Mauro then returned for the Civil Police of São Paulo where he partook in several roles, including as Chief of the Intelligence of the Division of Criminal Information in April 2009.
In 2008, he began working for the Sports Justice Court of São Paulo (TJD-SP), where he was elected as president in 2012. In 2016, he left the presidency and became the rapporteur of the Superior Justice Court of Sports (STJD).
Education
Mauro is graduated in law by the Universidade São Francisco in 1983, Criminal Justice by the Virginia University and in cybersecurity by the FBI National Academy. Both his American graduations were concluded in 1993. He was the best student from his class on FBI National Academy.
He is also graduated at the Superior School of War and was the first of his class on Superior Course of Police, thus becoming a special-class Police Delegate. He also made several courses, including from the Police Departments of Miami, New York, Paris and Tokyo.
Early career
Mauro became a police officer in 1984.
After his return to Brazil, Mauro worked at the 89th Police District of the Civil Police of São Paulo in Morumbi, São Paulo.
In 1994, Mauro was invited by the FBI to take part of the security taskforce for the 1994 World Cup.
In the same year, Mauro solved the case of the kidnaping of Roberto Teixeira's nephew. The kid was released from captivity after 11 days without paying the ransom. As Teixeira was friend of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Mauro fell in favor of the future president.
On 26 October 1994, Mauro Marcelo ordered the prison of the engineer Luis Augusto Cerigola for killing his wife, Mariângela Iscolanieri Cerigola, for adultery.
In 1995, Mauro has worked as coordinator for Brazilian branch of Web-Police.
In May 1995, Mauro was contacted by Q-Refres-Ko executives after the private detective Valdir Matias dos Santos tried to extort them in R$14 thousand. Valdir was hired by Philip Morris International for transcribing the phone calls obtained by wiretapping and decided to ask for the money because he received only R$10 to do his job. He was arrested on 3 May and Mauro ordered the case to be conducted with legal confidentiality.
In 1995, Mauro worked in the verification of the phone calls made by illegal cassino owners in the midst of the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee (CPI) of Bingos. He accused three investigators and a cop of helping with the protection of Ivo Noal's jogo do bicho cassinos.
In 1997, Mauro worked for the Police Department for Protection of Authorities, Dignitaries and Consular Representants, from the Civil Police of São Paulo.
On 27 August 1997, Maria Cristina Poli, host of Vitrine from TV Cultura, requested the investigation of the rape threats she was receiving via e-mail. On 29 August, Mauro's taskforce arrested the systems analyst Jair Francisco Pinto, codenamed J.F., under the accusations of threatening and illegal embarrassment. He sent the messages as he was testing a program that omitted the e-mail sender. Poli received almost 200 messages and Barbara Gancia, columnist for Folha de S. Paulo, received 535 e-mails. This was the first arrest in Brazil for a crime committed via e-mail. Jair was sentenced on 18 November to pay a fine and lecture informatics classes for students of the Police Academy (Acadepol). Because of the repercussion, several policemen asked Mauro help to solve similar cases.
In November 1997, Mauro investigated messages sent to the financial market of London by Ricardo Mansur, owner of Mappin, containing the fake news that Bradesco was going to bankrupt. In August, Mansur sued Bradesco for supposedly bankrupt his businesses.
Cybercrime investigator
In 1999, Mauro Marcelo was the first chief from the Sector of Investigation for High Technology Crimes (SICAT) of the Civil Police of São Paulo. SICAT was the first police station for cybercrimes of Brazil. Mauro was known for being very effective in his job, sometimes solving cases in a matter of hours.
In 1999, the Brazilian Football Confederation website was invaded by a hacker from Cascavel nicknamed Alguém (Someone). Instead of prosecuting him, Mauro recruited the 16-year-old boy to help to tackle cybercrime due the lack of personnel on SICAT. Since then, the cooperation between hackers and SICAT became a common procedure. Some of the cases the hackers cooperated were Alguém report against the Organização Hacker Brasileira (Brazilian Hacker Organization), responsible for the invasion of the websites from the Supreme Federal Court and the Military Police of São Paulo State, and the blockage of the website from National Telecommunications Agency, reported by a hacker named Pirata (Pirate). The responsible, Lima e Silva, codenamed Kernel, was also invited to collaborate with the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais. In March 2000, the Ministry of Justice created a hacker group, including cooperators of SICAT, to create a legislation against cybercrimes in Brazil.
In April 2000, Mauro investigated the pornographic website Gostosa Home Page for publishing a fake naked picture of Sandy, aged 17. Rodrigo Coutinho Marques was arrested on 28 April for violation of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent. Coutinho was also sued by Editora Abril for copyright infringement for publishing photos of Playboy magazine without permission. Gostosa Home Page was taken down. In June the website was recreated by Coutinho fans on an American domain, but the new website was also quickly taken down.
In May 2000, Mauro investigated death threats sent to Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton in the White House website. In April, the FBI discovered the threats were sent from an IP address from Adaptanet, a Brazilian company from Bauru, and sent the case to SICAT. SICAT subsequently contacted the Correio Net internet provider to gather data from the user. Correio Net didn't deliver the data for the lack of court order, and Mauro opened an inquiry against Jefferson Manglio, the company supervisor, for disobedience, but Jefferson entered with an habeas corpus and the 1st Criminal Court of Campinas paralyzed the inquiry. The Court of Appeal cancelled the inquiry but obligated the company to give the necessary data for deeming the court order unnecessary for the case. Mauro was cheered by the White House after solving the crime.
In the same month, Mauro entered with an inquiry to stop the news websites Securenet and Hackernews to publish screenshots from cracker attacks, arguing that they were making the criminals famous. He also entered on Justice to prohibit mirror websites from Securenet and Hackernews to be created.
Mauro also investigated international websites that sold drugs online in the same month. He bought small quantities of weed from eight websites and received the package from three of them. The weed was sent to the Medical Legal Institute for analysis and he declared the Federal Police of Brazil and the Correios were going to be questioned for allowing the drugs to enter in Brazil.
In June 2000 Mauro worked on a case where since 10 May, someone codenamed Tenório Cavalcanti accused the Councilors of Caieiras in the Assembly website of supposed irregularities, such as having ghost employees.
In December 2000, Mauro worked on a case where an apocryphal website was created to attack the Workers' Party, the ex-Governor of Brasília Cristovam Buarque and the director of Correio Braziliense Ricardo Noblat. Mauro discovered the website was maintained by a computer located on the office of the President of the Legislative Assembly of Brasília Edimar Pireneus (PMDB). Subsequently, Pirineus fired his employee, Stanlly Vasconcelos, accused of the crime, and opened two commissions to determine if other people were involved.
On 1 February 2001, the hacker group Insanity Zine Corp. invaded the website from Sex Shop Virtual and posted offenses against Mauro.
On 5 February 2001, the Brazilian hacker group Data Cha0s invaded the main page from the Central Bank of Egypt and posted a message mocking the Federal Police of Brazil and doxing Mauro personal information.
On 21 June 2001, Mauro ordered internet providers to take down an website that exalted the criminal organization Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC).
Mauro was also member of a series of international initiatives to fight cybercrime, including Police Futurists International, International Association of Chiefs of Police and International Association of Computer Investigative Specialists.
Brazilian Intelligence Agency
Mauro worked in the security of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during the 2002 election. He installed anti-wiretap measures in Lula's house after reports that PSDB was spying the candidate. Lula main rival during the elections was José Serra, from PSDB. After being elected, Lula nominated Mauro as General-Director of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN). His name was accepted by the Senate on 29 June 2004 and he was officially accepted on 13 July, substituting Marisa Almeida Del'Isola e Diniz. Mauro was the first person from the Civil Police to command ABIN, and nomination was criticized by the Brazilian Army for his ties with the FBI. Mauro not only studied in the FBI National Academy, but also is a declared fan of Edgar Hoover.