by Christian K. Caruzo
Rio de Janeiro’s Civil Police on early Thursday morning updated the official death toll of Tuesday’s massive police raid against the deadly Comando Vermelho (“Red Command”) drug-trafficking gang from an initial 64 to 121.
On Tuesday, some 2,500 officials from Rio’s civil and military police conducted “Operation Containment,” a massive security operation in northern Rio’s Complexo do Alemão and Penha favelas against Red Command, one of the largest and most dangerous drug trafficking gangs in Brazil. The operation, now considered the most lethal in the country’s history, saw law enforcement officials execute hundreds of arrest warrants and search and seizure warrants against Red Command and its territorial expansion plans in the two northern favelas.
The operation was the end result of a year-long investigation against the criminal organization and authorized by Rio governor Cláudio Castro, a member of conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party (PL).
Red Command responded to the security operation by engaging in violent armed clashes with police officers, placing several burning barricades, and even using drones to launch bombs at officers. Four officials were killed during the operation. Governor Castro cataloged Red Command’s criminal actions as narco-terrorism.
On Wednesday, Colonel Marcelo de Menezes, Secretary of Rio’s Military Police, disclosed new details of the security operation to reporters. Reiterating that the operation stems from a year-long investigation, De Menezes said it took 60 days of planning and involved the use of the “BOPE wall,” a strategy from the Special Police Operations Battalion (BOPE) in which security agents surround criminals and push them towards the woods. The Secretary detailed that officials entered Rio’s Serra da Misericórdia (“Mercy Mountain”) forest hill and pushed the criminals to a location where a BOPE battalion was positioned beforehand.
De Menezes explained that the action was aimed at protecting the local population, as officials cornered criminals to ensure the physical safety of residents of the two favelas. Most of the confrontations, he further detailed, took place in the forest area between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. (local time).
“We spread the troops across the terrain. The difference, compared to the images showing heavily armed criminals seeking refuge in the forest area, was the incursion of BOPE agents into the highest part of the mountain separating the two communities,” De Menezes said. “This action created what we call the ‘BOPE Wall,’ a line of containment formed by police officers who pushed the criminals to the top of the mountain.”