RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — About 2,500 Brazilian police and soldiers launched a massive raid on a drug-trafficking gang in Rio de Janeiro and arrested 80 suspects Tuesday while sparking shootouts that left at least 10 people dead.
Calling it the biggest such raid in history, authorities said it included officers in helicopters and armored vehicles and targeted the notorious Red Command in the sprawling low-income favelas of Complexo de Alemao and Penha.
Police did not confirm any deaths, but local media reports, including by online news website G1, said scores of people were believed killed. An Associated Press journalist saw at least 10 bodies arrive at the Getulio Vargas hospital in Penha, two of them police officers. An unknown number of people were wounded.
Footage on social media showed fire and smoke rising from the two favelas as gunfire rang out. The city’s Education Department said 46 schools across the two neighborhoods were closed.
Authorities arrested at least 80 suspects, Rio’s civil police said in a statement.
Claudio Castro, the conservative governor of Rio state, said the operation was the largest in the city’s history, and that the federal government should be providing more support to combat crime.
The coordination action Tuesday followed a year of investigation into the criminal group, police said.
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