RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Some 2,500 Brazilian police and soldiers launched a massive raid on a drug gang in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, arresting 80 suspects and triggering shootouts that left at least 10 dead.
Calling it the largest raid of its kind in history, authorities said it included officers in helicopters and armored vehicles and targeted the notorious Red Command in the sprawling, low-income favelas of Complexo de Alemao and Penha.
Police did not confirm any deaths, but local media reports, including online news website G1, said dozens of people were believed to have died. An Associated Press journalist saw at least 10 bodies arrive at the Getulio Vargas hospital in Penha, two of them police officers. An unknown number of people were injured.
Images on social media showed fire and smoke billowing from the two favelas as gunshots were heard. The city’s Education Department said 46 schools in the two neighborhoods were closed, and the nearby Federal University of Rio de Janeiro canceled night classes and asked people on campus to seek shelter.
Authorities arrested at least 80 suspects, Rio’s civil police said in a statement. Tuesday’s coordination action came after a year-long investigation into the criminal group, police said.
Claudio Castro, the conservative governor of Rio state, said the operation was the largest in the city’s history and that the federal government should provide more support to combat crime.
The Red Command criminal gang, which emerged from Rio’s prisons, has expanded its control in the favelas in recent years.
Rio has been the scene of deadly police raids for decades. In March 2005, some 29 people were murdered in the Baixada Fluminense region of Rio, while in May 2021, 28 were murdered in the Jacarezinho favela.
While Tuesday’s police operation was similar to previous ones, its scale is unprecedented, said Luis Flavio Sapori, a sociologist and public security expert at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais. He suggested the confirmed death toll could dwarf that of previous raids.
He argued that these types of operations are inefficient because they do not tend to catch the masterminds, but instead target subordinates who can then be replaced.
“It is not enough to enter, exchange shots and leave. There is a lack of strategy in Rio de Janeiro’s public security policy,” said Sapori. “Some lower-ranking members of these factions are killed, but those individuals are quickly replaced by others.”