Brazil's Integrated Forces to Combat Organized Crime, known as FICCOs, served 106 arrest warrants and 173 search and seizure warrants across 19 states on Wednesday (16), according to news site G1. The Federal Police named the joint action Operation Força Integrada IV and said 20 FICCO bases took part. Court orders issued for the operation also froze, seized or otherwise restricted assets worth more than 508 million reais.
The warrants target suspects under investigation for alleged drug trafficking, arms trafficking, money laundering and other offenses tied to violent criminal organizations. The financial measures cover real estate, vehicles, bank balances and other assets linked to the groups under investigation. G1 reports that one stated goal is to strip the groups of their financial base through what authorities call decapitalization.
How the task forces are organized
The FICCOs are task forces coordinated by the Federal Police that gather agencies from different levels of government: civil, military and prison police, municipal guards, the Federal Highway Police (PRF), the national prison policy office (Senappen) and state public security departments. On the same morning, the official Federal Police newsroom listed parallel actions by state FICCO bases: in Sergipe, three searches against a group investigated for illegal lending, extortion and threats; in Tocantins, two warrants over money laundering and transnational drug trafficking, with asset freezes of up to 412.5 million reais; in Rio Grande do Norte, Operation Enclave made arrests in Natal, Caicó and Ceará-Mirim; and in Paraíba, the second phase of Operation Trapiche, run with the state prosecutors' anti-organized crime unit (Gaeco), targeted drug trafficking and money laundering.
Everyone covered by the warrants is an investigado, a suspect, and benefits from the presumption of innocence guaranteed by Brazil's Constitution. The reports consulted name no target and record no public statement in their defense.
A final tally of arrests actually carried out had not been released. As the next procedural step, those arrested under warrant are to be brought before the courts that issued the orders, and the asset freezes and seizures remain subject to judicial confirmation. The Federal Police announced no date for further phases of the operation.