Federal Police agents, in conjunction with the international task force to Combat Weapons and Ammunition Trafficking, arrested this Monday (24) in the act of a man and a woman who were purchasing, receiving, transporting and supplying war materials for fuel organized crime.
The equipment, received on orders from the Post Office, was intended to strengthen the military power of the criminal faction that dominates and exploits territories through the clandestine use of firearms. In today’s action, the criminals were arrested in the act while picking up the order with military equipment at the Franchised Post Office, located in Complexo da Maré, in the north of the capital of Rio de Janeiro. The region is dominated by the Third Comando Puro faction, which recently, in an action by the Military Police, killed two police officers from the corporation’s elite troop (BOPE) with rifle shots.
The couple sold imported, high-capacity holographic sights, scopes, stocks and rifle magazines, capable of storing 50 rounds of ammunition and firing up to 50 uninterrupted shots in a few seconds. The woman was also involved in the sale of firearm parts.
According to the PF delegate, José Paulo Martins Duval, from the Police Station for the Repression of Crimes Against Property and Arms Trafficking (Delepat-RJ), investigations identified that criminal organizations operating in the Maré favela complex use of individuals to purchase firearms accessories, through the recruitment of individuals who, on behalf of the faction, acquire this military equipment both on the domestic and foreign markets. “This way, they have a way of supplying the communities with these accessories, which are very important items, for this war logistics in Rio de Janeiro, using these intervening people”, stated Duval.
“Our investigations identified that, in the vast majority of cases, there is a false declaration of the contents of these items. So they are diverted and later sent to these criminal organizations”, detailed the federal delegate.
The sentences accumulated for those arrested this Monday exceed 20 years in prison. They were taken to the Regional Superintendence of the Federal Police in Rio de Janeiro and, after the formal arrest in the act, they went to the State prison system, where they will remain at the disposal of the Justice.
