About 2,500 Brazilian police and troopers launched a large raid on a drug-trafficking gang in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, arresting 81 suspects and sparking shootouts that left greater than 100 folks lifeless, officers stated.
Brazilian police stated Wednesday the demise toll stood at 119 killed, together with 4 law enforcement officials, however Rio de Janeiro’s state public defender’s workplace advised the Agence France-Presse that 132 folks had been killed within the raids.
Rio state Gov. Claudio Castro initially put the demise toll at round 60 on Wednesday, however warned that the true determine was possible increased as extra our bodies had been being taken to a morgue and counted.
Residents of a favela in Rio lined up greater than 40 our bodies at a plaza of their low-income neighborhood on Wednesday, a day after the operation, AFP reported. The corpses had been positioned close to one of many predominant roads within the Penha Complicated.
The operation included officers in helicopters and armored automobiles and focused the infamous Pink Command within the sprawling low-income favelas of Complexo de Alemao and Penha, police stated. Rafael Soares, a journalist masking crime in Rio, advised BBC Information Brasil that the Pink Command had been on the offensive within the metropolis in recent times, reclaiming territory it had misplaced to its rivals, First Capital Command.
The police operation was one of the crucial violent in Brazil’s current historical past, with human rights organizations calling for investigations into the deaths.
Castro stated in a video posted on X Tuesday that 60 felony suspects had been “neutralized” throughout the large raid that he known as the most important such operation within the metropolis’s historical past. Some 81 suspects had been arrested, whereas 93 rifles and greater than half a ton of medicine had been seized, the state authorities stated, including that these killed “resisted police motion.”
Rio’s civil police stated on X that 4 officers died in Tuesday’s operation. “The cowardly assaults by criminals towards our brokers won’t go unpunished,” it stated.
Law enforcement officials escort a suspect arrested throughout the Operacao Contencao (Operation Containment) out of the Vila Cruzeiro favela, within the Penha advanced, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on October 28, 2025. / Credit score: MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP through Getty Photographs
Residents scrambled for canopy and retailers closed their doorways amid police claims that the gangs had been utilizing drones to combat again, AFP reported.
Castro posted a video on X of what he described as a gang-controlled drone launching a projectile from the cloudy sky.
“That is how the Rio police are handled by criminals: with bombs dropped by drones. That is the size of the problem we face. This isn’t atypical crime, however narcoterrorism,” he stated.
State officers stated no less than 50 of these killed had been “indicated by police as suspected of being criminals,” BBC Information reported. Dozens of individuals had been injured, together with civilians caught within the crossfire, in keeping with the BBC.
The United Nations’ human rights physique stated it was “horrified” by the lethal police operation, known as for efficient investigations and reminded authorities of their obligations below worldwide human rights regulation.
César Muñoz, director of Human Rights Watch in Brazil, known as Tuesday’s occasions “an enormous tragedy” and a “catastrophe.”
“The general public prosecutor’s workplace should open its personal investigations and make clear the circumstances of every demise,” Muñoz stated in an announcement.
Footage on social media confirmed fireplace and smoke rising from the 2 favelas as gunfire rang out. Town’s Training Division stated 46 colleges throughout the 2 neighborhoods had been closed, and the close by Federal College of Rio de Janeiro canceled night time courses and advised folks on campus to hunt shelter.
Suspected gang members blocked roads in northern and southeastern Rio in response to the raid, native media reported. At the very least 70 buses had been commandeered for use within the blockades, inflicting vital harm, the town’s bus group Rio Onibus stated.
The operation Tuesday adopted a yr of investigation into the felony group, police stated.
Gov. Castro, from the conservative opposition Liberal Social gathering, stated the federal authorities must be offering extra assist to fight crime — a swipe on the administration of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Gleisi Hoffmann, the Lula administration’s liaison with the parliament, agreed that coordinated motion was wanted however pointed to a current crackdown on cash laundering for instance of the federal authorities’s motion on organized crime.
Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and quite a few ministers met in response to the operation on Tuesday afternoon. Chief of workers Rui Costa requested an emergency assembly in Rio on Wednesday, with him in attendance in addition to Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski.
Rising from Rio’s prisons, the Pink Command felony gang has expanded its management in favelas in recent times.
“Russian roulette”
Rio has been the scene of deadly police raids for many years. In March 2005, some 29 folks had been killed in Rio’s Baixada Fluminense area, whereas in Might 2021, 28 had been killed within the Jacarezinho favela.
Whereas the Tuesday’s police operation was just like earlier ones, its scale was unprecedented, stated Luis Flavio Sapori, a sociologist and public security knowledgeable at Pontifical Catholic College of Minas Gerais.
“What’s completely different about at present’s operation is the magnitude of the victims. These are warfare numbers,” he stated.
He argued that these sorts of operations are inefficient as a result of they don’t are likely to catch the masterminds, however relatively goal underlings who can later get replaced.
“It isn’t sufficient to go in, trade gunfire, and go away. There is a lack of technique in Rio de Janeiro’s public safety coverage,” Sapori stated. “Some lower-ranking members of those factions are killed, however these people are shortly changed by others.”
The Marielle Franco Institute, a nonprofit based by the slain councilwoman’s household to proceed her legacy of combating for the rights of individuals dwelling in favelas, additionally criticized the operation.
“This isn’t a public security coverage. It is a coverage of extermination, that makes the on a regular basis lifetime of Black and poor folks a Russian roulette,” it stated in an announcement.
“Everyone seems to be terrified”
AFP noticed police within the Vila Cruzeiro neighborhood of Penha district guarding about 20 younger folks huddled collectively and sitting on the sidewalk, heads bowed, barefoot and shirtless.
“That is the primary time we have seen drones (from criminals) dropping bombs in the neighborhood,” stated a Penha resident, talking on situation of anonymity.
“Everyone seems to be terrified as a result of there’s a lot gunfire,” she added.
A girl cries outdoors Getulio Vargas Hospital shortly after her relative was introduced right here by police on account of harm throughout a police operation towards alleged drug traffickers within the Complexo do Alemao favela the place the felony group
Tuesday’s operation halted floor site visitors on lots of the seaside metropolis’s predominant streets.
“We’re left with out buses, with out something, on this chaos and never figuring out what to do,” stated Regina Pinheiro, a 70-year-old retiree, who was attempting to return house.
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