2,500 officers with armored vehicles and helicopters battled the 'Red Command' gang, who officials accuse of deploying "bomb-dropping drones" in what the governor labeled "narcoterrorism."
RIO DE JANEIRO — Bodies piled up in the impoverished neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday as the state launched its largest-ever police operation against the city's powerful drug traffickers. The raid descended into "war-like scenes" of urban combat, leaving at least 64 people dead shattering all previous records for a single day's police operation.
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| Police officers escort suspects arrested in Rio's favelas (Mauro PIMENTEL) |
The city, famed for its beaches, was paralyzed by the violence. As many as 2,500 heavily armed officers, backed by 32 armored vehicles, 12 demolition vehicles, helicopters, and observation drones, stormed the Complexo da Penha and Complexo do Alemao. These sprawling favelas, located near Rio's international airport, are strongholds of the Comando Vermelho (Red Command), Brazil's main drug-trafficking gang.
Gunfire echoed for hours, and thick plumes of smoke billowed from multiple fires. The operation, which was still ongoing late Tuesday afternoon, left 60 suspected gang members and four police officers dead.
A New Tactic: "Narcoterrorism" Drones
This was not a one-sided assault. In a terrifying escalation of tactics, officials accused the gangs of fighting back from the sky.
State Governor Claudio Castro labeled the battle "narcoterrorism," posting a video on X (formerly Twitter) that he claimed showed a gang-controlled drone launching a projectile from the cloudy sky.
"This is how the Rio police are treated by criminals: with bombs dropped by drones," Castro wrote. "This is the scale of the challenge we face. This is not ordinary crime."
Residents on the ground confirmed the new, terrifying tactic. "This is the first time we've seen drones (from criminals) dropping bombs in the community," said one Penha resident, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear. "Everyone is terrified because there's so much gunfire."
A City Paralyzed, Residents "Terrified"
For the millions of citizens in Rio, the raid brought the city to a standstill. Shops were shuttered, and residents scrambled for cover. The chaos halted traffic on many of the city's main arterial streets.
"We're left without buses, without anything, in this chaos and not knowing what to do," said Regina Pinheiro, a 70-year-old retiree, as she tried to return home.
Inside the favelas, police used their demolition vehicles to smash through the barricades erected by traffickers to block entry into the narrow alleyways. AFP journalists in the Vila Cruzeiro neighborhood witnessed the aftermath: about 20 young men, barefoot, shirtless, and with heads bowed, sitting huddled on a sidewalk under heavy police guard.
The central government stated the raid's objective was to stop the Red Command from expanding its territory.
Global "Horror" and Local "Barbarism"
The operation immediately drew furious condemnation both at home and abroad, challenging the state's militaristic security strategy.
Congressman Henrique Vieira, an evangelical pastor, accused the government of treating its own citizens as combatants. The state, he wrote on X, "treats the favela as enemy territory, with a license to shoot and kill."
In Geneva, the UN human rights office said it was "horrified" by the violence. "This deadly operation furthers the trend of extreme lethal consequences of police operations in Brazil's marginalized communities," UN officials said in a statement, urging "prompt and effective investigations."
The Human Rights Commission of the Rio State Legislative Assembly pledged to demand answers for what its head, congresswoman Dani Monteiro, called a "theater of war and barbarism."
This raid's death toll of 64 far surpasses the previous grim record from a 2021 raid that left 28 people dead. Experts and human rights organizations have long criticized these "mega-operations" as ineffective and counterproductive.
The statistics paint a bloody picture of this strategy: Last year alone, approximately 700 people almost two per day were killed during police operations in the state of Rio de Janeiro.