Rio de Janeiro's Military Police launched an operation on Wednesday morning in communities linked to the Comando Vermelho (CV), one of Brazil's largest drug trafficking factions, in the state capital and in the Baixada Fluminense metropolitan region. Police said they had detected a plan by the faction to invade the Complexo de Israel, a cluster of favelas controlled by a rival group, the Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP), according to Brazil's state news agency Agência Brasil. At the same time, police began an open-ended occupation of the five communities that make up the complex, in the city's north side.
According to CNN Brasil, intelligence indicated CV members had been holding meetings to plan an advance on Vigário Geral, Parada de Lucas, Cidade Alta, Cinco Bocas and Pica-Pau, the communities that form the Complexo de Israel and are controlled by the TCP. To try to head off that movement, police operated in the communities of Quitungo, Guaporé, Furquim, Dique and Ficap, in the city's north zone, and in Parque das Missões, in the city of Duque de Caxias, areas police describe as under CV influence. In total, 200 officers took part, backed by six armored vehicles, 40 patrol cars and aircraft from the police's air unit.
Timeline of the crackdown
The sequence of actions began on Tuesday, when the Civil and Military Police carried out arrest warrants against alleged TCP members in the Complexo de Israel, the result of an investigation by the 38th Police Precinct in the Brás de Pina neighborhood. Eight people were arrested, among them Luana Rosa de Araújo, who police describe as the right hand of Álvaro Malaquias Santos Rosa, known as Peixão and identified by authorities as one of the TCP's main leaders in the area. Officers found a property allegedly used as a fortified bunker, with reinforced firing slots, and seized cellphones and other electronic devices that will undergo forensic analysis.
As part of the same effort, officers went to the Buraco do Boi community in Nova Iguaçu to check intelligence reports. Three people were arrested there, and a man identified by police as the local drug trafficking manager died after allegedly attacking officers. Two rifles, drugs and vehicles reported as stolen were seized. None of those arrested in either operation has had a judicial outcome made public, and their individual responsibility remains under investigation, as Brazilian law presumes innocence until conviction.
On Wednesday, the police began the extended occupation of the Complexo de Israel itself. More than 220 officers from special operations units, including the Bope special police battalion, the riot squad known as Choque, a K9 unit and the 1st Area Policing Command, began patrolling the five communities around the clock, with shift changes carried out on site. "We are doing preventive, visible policing alongside our intelligence sector. We conduct sweeps with the K9 battalion, Bope and Choque," Major Maicon Pereira, the force's spokesman, told Agência Brasil.
Police said major expressways, including the Linha Vermelha and Linha Amarela highways and Avenida Brasil, would be shut immediately in the event of armed confrontation during the occupation. Authorities also describe Peixão as using a religious front to impose violent territorial control over the communities, including alleged persecution of residents of other faiths, according to the characterization given by police. The force gave no timeline for when the occupation might end, nor a date for completing forensic analysis of the seized devices, steps expected to shape the next stage of the investigation into both factions.