Raid on gang in Rio de Janeiro leaves over 100 people dead, including police officers, officials say

About 2,500 Brazilian police and soldiers launched a massive raid on a drug trafficking gang in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, arresting 81 suspects and sparking shootouts that left more than 100 people dead, including at least four police officers, officials said.

The Rio de Janeiro state public defender’s office said Wednesday that 132 people had been killed in raids against the city’s drug traffickers, more than double the current official toll.

“The most recent toll is 132 deaths,” the public body providing legal assistance to the most deprived told Agence France-Presse.

On Wednesday, Rio state Governor Claudio Castro put the death toll at around 60, but warned that the real figure was likely higher because more bodies would be taken to the morgue, where the dead would be counted.

Residents of a Rio favela lined up more than 40 bodies in a square in their popular neighborhood on Wednesday, a day after the operation, AFP reported. The corpses were placed near one of the main roads of the Penha complex.

The operation 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 said.

The police operation was one of the most violent in Brazil’s recent history, with human rights groups calling for an investigation into the deaths.

Castro said in a video released Tuesday that 60 criminal suspects were “neutralized” in the massive raid, which he called the largest such operation in the city’s history. Some 81 suspects were arrested, while 93 rifles and more than half a tonne of drugs were seized, the state government said, adding that those killed “resisted police action”.

Rio’s civil police said on X that four officers died during Tuesday’s operation. “The cowardly attacks of criminals against our agents will not go unpunished,” he added.

Residents rushed for cover and stores closed their doors as police said the gangs were using drones to fight back, AFP reported.

Castro posted a video on X of what he described as a gang-controlled drone launching a projectile from a cloudy sky.

“This is how criminals treat the police in Rio: with bombs dropped by drones. This is the scale of the challenge we face. This is not an ordinary crime, but narcoterrorism,” he said.

State officials said at least 50 of those killed had been “indicated by police as suspected criminals,” BBC News reported. Dozens of people were injured, including civilians caught in the crossfire, according to the BBC.

The United Nations human rights body said it was “horrified” by the deadly police operation, called for effective investigations and reminded authorities of their obligations under international human rights law.

César Muñoz, director of Human Rights Watch in Brazil, called Tuesday’s events a “great tragedy” and a “disaster.”

“The public prosecutor’s office must open its own investigations and clarify the circumstances of each death,” Muñoz said in a statement.

Images posted on social media showed fire and smoke rising from the two favelas as gunshots rang out. The city’s education ministry said 46 schools across the two neighborhoods were closed and the nearby Federal University of Rio de Janeiro had canceled evening classes and asked students to take shelter.

Suspected gang members blocked roads in Rio’s north and southeast in response to the raid, local media reported. At least 70 buses were requisitioned for use during the blockades, causing significant damage, the city’s bus organization Rio Onibus said.

Tuesday’s operation follows a year-long investigation into the criminal group, police said.

Governor Castro, of the conservative opposition Liberal Party, said the federal government should provide more support to fight crime – a blow to the administration of left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Gleisi Hoffmann, the Lula administration’s liaison to Parliament, agreed that coordinated action was needed, but cited the recent crackdown on money laundering as an example of the federal government’s action against organized crime.

Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and several ministers met Tuesday afternoon in response to the operation. Chief of staff Rui Costa requested an emergency meeting in Rio on Wednesday, in the presence of him and Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski.

Emerging from Rio’s prisons, the Red Command criminal gang has expanded its control in the favelas in recent years.

“Russian roulette”

Rio has been the scene of deadly police raids for decades. In March 2005, some 29 people were killed in the Baixada Fluminense region of Rio, while in May 2021, 28 people were killed in the Jacarezinho favela.

Although Tuesday’s police operation was similar to previous ones, its scale was unprecedented, said Luis Flavio Sapori, a sociologist and public security expert at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais.

“What is different in today’s operation is the scale of the casualties. These are war figures,” he said.

He argued that these types of operations are ineffective because they are not intended to catch the masterminds, but rather to target underlings who can then be replaced.

“It’s not enough to enter, exchange gunfire and leave. There is a lack of strategy in Rio de Janeiro’s public security policy,” Sapori said. “Some lower-ranking members of these factions are killed, but these individuals are quickly replaced by others.”

The Marielle Franco Institute, a nonprofit founded by the family of the murdered councilor to continue her legacy of fighting for the rights of people living in favelas, also criticized the operation.

“This is not a policy of public safety. It is a policy of extermination, which turns the daily lives of black people and the poor into Russian roulette,” he said in a statement.

“Everyone is terrified”

AFP saw police officers in the Vila Cruzeiro neighborhood of Penha district monitoring around 20 young people gathered and sitting on the sidewalk, heads down, barefoot and shirtless.

“This is the first time we have seen (criminals’) drones dropping bombs in the community,” said a Penha resident, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Everyone is terrified because there are so many shots,” she added.

Raids in favelas are common, but this one was the deadliest yet. The highest toll so far was recorded during a raid in 2021, which left 28 people dead.

Tuesday’s operation halted traffic on many of the seaside town’s main streets.

“We find ourselves without a bus, without anything, in this chaos and without knowing what to do,” said Regina Pinheiro, a 70-year-old retiree, who was trying to return home.