About 2,500 Brazilian police officers and soldiers launched a massive raid on a drug-trafficking gang in Rio de Janeiro, arresting 81 suspects and sparking shootouts that left at least 60 people dead, officials said.
The large-scale operation on Tuesday (local time) involved officers using helicopters and armoured vehicles and targeted the notorious Red Command in the sprawling low-income favelas of Complexo de Alemao and Penha, according to police.
Authorities described the raid as one of the most violent in Brazil’s recent history, with at least one human rights organisation calling for an investigation into each reported death.
Rio’s state Governor Claudio Castro said in a video posted on X that 60 criminal suspects had been “neutralised,” 81 arrested, and 75 rifles seized during what he called the biggest police operation in the city’s history. The state government added that a significant quantity of drugs was also confiscated.
An Associated Press journalist witnessed the bodies of at least two police officers among ten corpses brought to the Getulio Vargas hospital in Penha, though police did not immediately confirm whether any officers had been killed.
An unspecified number of people were also wounded during the clashes.
César Muñoz, director of Human Rights Watch in Brazil, described Tuesday’s events as “a huge 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.
Videos shared on social media showed flames and thick smoke rising from the two favelas as gunfire echoed through the area. Rio’s Education Department said 46 schools in the neighbourhoods were closed, while the nearby Federal University of Rio de Janeiro cancelled evening classes and advised those on campus to seek shelter.
Suspected gang members reportedly blocked roads in northern and southeastern Rio in response to the raid, commandeering at least 50 buses to use in the blockades, according to the city’s bus association, Rio Onibus.
Police said the operation followed a year-long investigation into the Red Command’s criminal activities.
Governor Castro, from the conservative opposition Liberal Party, criticised the federal government for not providing enough support to combat crime — a pointed remark aimed at the administration of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Gleisi Hoffmann, the Lula administration’s liaison with parliament, acknowledged that coordinated action was needed but cited a recent crackdown on money laundering as an example of the federal government’s efforts to fight organised crime.
The Red Command gang, which originated in Rio’s prisons, has steadily expanded its control over the city’s favelas in recent years.
Rio de Janeiro has long been plagued by deadly police raids. In March 2005, around 29 people were killed in the Baixada Fluminense region, and in May 2021, 28 were killed in the Jacarezinho favela.
While Tuesday’s operation was similar in nature to previous ones, its scale was unprecedented, said Luis Flavio Sapori, a sociologist and public safety expert at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais.
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“What’s different about today’s operation is the magnitude of the victims. These are war numbers,” he said.
Sapori argued that such operations are often ineffective because they fail to capture the gang leaders, instead targeting low-level operatives who are easily replaced.
“It’s not enough to go in, exchange gunfire, and leave. There’s a lack of strategy in Rio de Janeiro’s public security policy,” he said.
“Some lower-ranking members of these factions are killed, but those individuals are quickly replaced by others.”
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