Rio’s security forces have intensified actions against gangs linked to criminal factions in the state. Since the beginning of the year, 10 leaders from other regions, who sought hiding in Rio de Janeiro in an attempt to expand their businesses, ended up arrested or neutralized. Most were housed in communities dominated by drug trafficking gangs.
“This result brings a clear message: we do not allow criminals from other states to use Rio as a hiding place to continue committing crimes. Our Civil and Military Police have acted and will continue to act in an integrated manner and with intelligence to locate and capture these criminals, wherever they are”, said the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Cláudio Castro.
In March, during an operation at Complexo do Salgueiro, in São Gonçalo, the biggest criminal in Pará was killed in a confrontation, as well as nine other bandits from Pará. The main target of the action was identified as responsible for a series of attacks against security agents in that state. The drug dealer’s gang is also said to have participated in the clashes that affect communities in the West Zone of Rio. The criminal even orchestrated the robbery at the Village Mall, in Barra da Tijuca, when a security guard was killed.
Among those arrested are the head of the Comando Vermelho in Fortaleza; the most wanted drug dealer in Minas Gerais; two members of the First Command of the Capital (PCC) of Rondônia; a high-ranking criminal from Sergipe who was sheltering in Maré; the leader of a criminal organization in Bahia; a drug dealer identified as the organizer of attacks in Rio Grande do Norte, in addition to a criminal from the same state also involved in terrorist acts; one of the most dangerous bank robbers in the country, a priority target of the Security Secretariat of Paraná; as well as a fugitive from justice in Mato Grosso, leader of the Comando Vermelho in that state and responsible for supplying drugs and weapons to the faction that controls drug trafficking in Complexo da Maré.
“We improved the working conditions of our police officers, increased the number of troops on the streets, acquired new equipment and achieved historic reductions in crime rates. We have invested heavily in the area to achieve these results: no less than R$1 billion. I will spare no efforts to make Rio a safer place to live, travel and invest”, said the governor.
