Rio Governor Claudio Castro said Tuesday that a massive narcotics operation against the Comando Vermelho, or Red Command, crime syndicate in Rio de Janeiro resulted in 81 arrests, 60 suspects and four police officers killed.
“We are confronting narcoterrorism resolutely,” Castro wrote on social media as he announced the operation.
He said 2,500 security personnel were deployed to the poor and densely populated Alemão and Penha favela complexes on the outskirts of the Brazilian city, near the international airport.
“Sadly, police officers were among the dead,” Castro said at a news conference later in the day.
State police said a collared suspect was the “right-hand man” of “one of the leaders” of Comando Vermelho.
The United Nations human rights office said Tuesday it was “appalled by the ongoing police operation” in Rio de Janeiro.
“This deadly operation furthers the trend of extremely lethal consequences of police operations in Brazil’s marginalized communities,” the UN human rights office posted on Twitter.
Major police action as climate change approaches
Operation Containment, as officials named it, took place just days before some major events in the city ahead of the COP30 global climate summit in Belem, north of Rio, starting on November 10.
Brazil’s second most populous city will host two exercise events next week: the C40 summit, which will bring together mayors from more than 100 of the world’s major cities; and the Earthshot Award from Prince William, the British heir to the throne, presented to five winners each year for their contributions to environmentalism.
The ceremony will be attended by a number of celebrities including pop singer Kylie Minogue and German four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel.
Rio has already seen large-scale and sometimes heavy-handed police crackdowns ahead of international events, targeting crime-ridden poor areas, with similar raids carried out ahead of the 2014 World Cup matches, the 2016 Olympics, last year’s G20 summit and the BRICS summit earlier this year.
In February 2018, the government handed over security in the city to the military police, citing deteriorating conditions.
Earlier this month, N.G.O. Human Rights Watch (HRW) asked Mayor Castro to veto a new bill passed in the state legislature that would pay large bonuses to police officers if they “neutralize” suspects.Warning that this could lead to an increase in police killings.
Cesar Muñoz, Brazil director at HRW, said, “Giving bonuses to police for murders is not only downright cruel, but also undermines public safety by giving officers a financial incentive to shoot suspects rather than arrest them.”
The government has described the action against Comando Vermelho as the biggest ever
Authorities said they were looking to execute 250 search and arrest warrants while deploying two helicopters, 32 armored vehicles and 12 “demolition vehicles” to destroy barricades set up by smugglers.
The Rio government described it as the largest operation ever conducted targeting Comando Vermelho. Castro posted a video on social media of what he described as a drone launching a projectile and said it showed law enforcement was in danger.
He said, “Rio police are treated like this by criminals: bombs are dropped by drones. This is the scale of the challenge we face. This is not ordinary crime, but narcoterrorism.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the revised death toll, which increased from 20 to 64.
Edited by: Louis Olofse