A year-long investigation was conducted to capture the leaders of Rio de Janeiro’s largest drug cartel, Comando Vermelho (Red Commando), and to hit hard on their drug activities and structures. But what should have been a large-scale and efficient operation on Tuesday turned out to be the bloodiest drug operation in the history of the state. More than sixty people were killed, including four police officers, eleven people were injured and eighty people were arrested.
When units of the military police, the civilian police and the so-called Bope (National Guard) moved to the northern part of the city on Tuesday to execute arrest warrants in the favelas Complexo do Alemão and Penha (an area with 300,000 inhabitants), fierce fighting quickly broke out between police and gang members.
The Comando Vermelho had blocked major access roads with buses, tires were set on fire and when police entered the area, things quickly escalated. For the mega operation, the police deployed a total of 2,500 men with 32 armored vehicles and helicopters, but the cartel members used advanced weapons, including modern drones to fire bombs from the air at the police cars.
‘Narcoterrorism’ shows Comando Vermelho’s power
Videos that went viral on social media show how residents of the neighborhoods were exposed to intense gunfire and bombs for hours, causing widespread panic.
Rio’s right-wing governor Claudio Castro declared that the state was “at war”, adding that it was not a matter of ordinary crime but of “narco-terrorism”. Dozens of schools were closed and hundreds of bus routes were shut down. In the center and south of the city, around the beach districts of Copacabana and Ipanema, many shops closed early. Thousands of people who work in these regions of the city then tried to get home, sometimes walking for hours to get home.
What this bloody operation mainly shows is how strong the Comando Vermelho has become in recent years and how large and advanced their arsenal now is. For the first time, combat drones were used on this scale by drug gangs and fired at police cars.
Although this battle between the police and drug criminals is not new, it has flared up again recently. The battle took place in the north of the city on Tuesday, but a war has also been raging in the west of Rio for some time, mainly over the expansion of territory, between drug gangs and paramilitary gangs of mainly ex-police officers, who extort residents and shopkeepers in neighborhoods and engage in large-scale drug trafficking.
In the run-up to the COP30
More than half of the state of Rio is now controlled by drug gangs or militias. Several politicians responded to the battle on social media on Tuesday evening, with a lot of criticism, especially from left-wing parties. “This is a state-sponsored massacre,” tweeted Congresswoman Lucia dos Santos of the PT workers’ party.
Human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, have also condemned the operation. “Security at the expense of bloodshed does not work,” an Amnesty spokesperson said in the media.
Questions have also been raised about the timing of this large-scale operation. These types of actions often take place in Brazil before major events. In November, the international climate summit COP30 will take place in the Amazon city of Belém, and in the run-up to this, various events will be organized in Rio. For example, next week there will be a special event for mayors from all over the world (C40 World Mayors Summit) and British Crown Prince William will travel to Rio de Janeiro as part of the presentation of the environmental prize he created.
On Tuesday evening there was still unrest in parts of the city and certain areas were still blocked by the police. It is still unknown whether additional reinforcement will be deployed from the federal government in the coming days.
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