Brazilian police launch mega-operation in Rio de Janeiro favelas to fight organized crime

RIO DE JANEIRO — Police agencies in the state of Rio de Janeiro on Monday launched a mega-operation with a force that includes almost 2,000 military and civilian officers in ten low-income neighborhoods to regain control of areas dominated by organized crime, according to a statement from the state government.

The agents were deployed in the western part of Rio, an area that has been the subject of intense territorial disputes involving drug traffickers and militias in recent years.

The operation, which also seeks to execute arrest warrants, has no end date. So far, the police have made three arrests and have seized a car with three grenades inside.

“The state government’s security task force is on the streets to fight criminal organizations that want to take the population hostage,” said the governor of Rio state. Cláudio Castro, who was present at the departure of the military-police troops in Recreio at four in the morning, local time, says the statement.

Agents were deployed in the extensive urban neighborhoods – known as favelas – of Rio das Pedras, Terreirao, Cesar Maia/Coroado, Cidade de Deus, Muzema, Gardenia Azul, Tijuquinha, Fontela, Morro do Banco and Sitio do Pai Joao.

Launched by the Rio state government, the operation’s partners include the Navy, municipal guard, cable television and Internet operators, and water, electricity and gas companies.

The expansion of organized crime in the western area of ​​Rio has caused fierce clashes between law enforcement and different factions of drug trafficking groups and militias.

The militias, formed in the late 1980s to stop the expansion of drug traffickers, more recently engaged in land grabbing and real estate and control more than half the territory in the Rio metropolitan region, according to a study by 2022 of the Fluminense Federal University and the Fogo Cruzado. Institute.