Rio de Janeiro is in a state of war. The operation launched today by the government of Cláudio Castro, of Bolsonaro's Liberal Party (PL), against the city's main criminal group, the Red Command (CV), is the deadliest in Rio de Janeiro's history. With more than sixty deaths, it has surpassed the Jacarezinho massacre of 2021, in which 28 people died, including a police officer. Today, four law enforcement officers lost their lives out of the more than 2,500 deployed to arrest the leaders of the criminal group in the Complejo do Alemão and Penha favelas, in the northern part of the city, home to 280,000 people.
The scenario the police faced was one of war. Drug traffickers responded by launching grenades from drones, firing with high-powered rifles capable of downing helicopters, and blocking access with barricades formed by hijacked buses. Videos recorded by residents showed bursts of 200 shots per minute. In addition, messages were intercepted in community WhatsApp groups in which drug traffickers threatened the population, particularly motorcyclists working for food delivery apps, to participate with their motorcycles in blocking all access roads to the favelas targeted by the operation.
Meanwhile, the city is paralyzed by chaos. Access to Galeão Airport has been blocked, while several universities have canceled classes. Hundreds of people are queuing on foot to try to return home, as buses are not running in many parts of the city. “This is an operation that began with the execution of court orders, more than a year of investigations, and more than 60 days of planning. A state operation against narco-terrorists: whoever does what these people do is a narco-terrorist,” Castro declared.
Today's operation is just one stage, the most dramatic in terms of human losses, of Operation Containment, an ongoing initiative by the Rio de Janeiro government to combat the expansion of the Red Command. The alert level at this time is so serious that the Rio de Janeiro Operations and Resilience Center has raised its operational level to 2 out of 5. Specifically, this means that all Rio de Janeiro military police officers have been deployed on the ground, and therefore, all administrative activities of the corporation have been suspended. What is feared now is a counteroffensive by drug traffickers in the coming hours, with attacks against members of law enforcement and police stations, in addition to new urban guerrilla actions in the favelas.
Although some eighty drug traffickers have been arrested, many of them have been seen from police helicopters fleeing in single file and hiding in the thick vegetation surrounding Rio de Janeiro's favelas, dressed in camouflage uniforms and armed with heavy weapons such as Kalashnikovs, a similar escape to the 2010 operation when police occupied the Complexo do Alemao. However, the police failed to arrest the main target of the operation, one of the leaders of the Comando Vermelho, Edgar Alves Andrade, known as Doca da Penha or Urso, 55. A reward of 100,000 reais ($18,653) has now been placed on him, the same amount that authorities offered in 2000 for the arrest of Fernandinho Beira Mar, a longtime leader of the faction and currently incarcerated in the maximum-security federal prison in Catanduvas, Paraná state. Doca has 20 outstanding arrest warrants. Originally from the northeastern state of Paraíba and raised in the Vila Cruzeiro favela in the Penha complex, Doca is a fugitive from the prison system and is being investigated for more than 100 murders. In 2023, he was identified as the mastermind behind the murder of three doctors and the attempted murder of a fourth in Barra da Tijuca, who were mistaken for Rio das Pedras militants. He later allegedly ordered the murder of those responsible for that attack. He is also wanted in connection with the 2021 disappearance of three children in Belford Roxo, in the Baixada Fluminense region of Rio de Janeiro. According to police investigations, he allegedly ordered the murderers to be killed. Neither the bodies of the victims nor those of the children have been found.
Rio de Janeiro's Secretary of Public Security, Víctor Santos, stated that the operation was planned in advance and did not have the support of the federal government." All the logistics are managed by the State itself. There are about 9 million square meters of chaos in Rio de Janeiro," he stated."Today's operation has very little to do with public security. It's a state of defense. It's no longer the exclusive responsibility of the State; it transcends our powers. There should have been some integration with the federal forces. Rio is isolated," declared Governor Castro, in a polemic with Lula's government. In fact, the governor of Rio reportedly asked the federal government for assistance, particularly for army armored vehicles, but was denied at least three times.
The Ministry of Justice's reaction was swift."The Ministry of Justice and Public Security has responded promptly to all requests from the Government of the State of Rio de Janeiro for the deployment of the National Police in the state to support federal and state public security agencies. Since 2023, 11 requests for the renewal of the FNSP (National Security Force) in Rio de Janeiro have been submitted, all of which were accepted," reads the statement issued by the ministry these hours."The Federal Police (PF) carried out 178 operations in the state of Rio de Janeiro in 2025 alone, 24 of which were related to drug and arms trafficking. In total, 210 arrests were made, 60 of which were directly related to investigations into drug and arms trafficking," the text concludes.
The Rio de Janeiro operation comes at a very delicate moment in the national debate on public security. Last week, the Ministry of Justice submitted a bill against organized crime to the Ministry of the Civil House to counter its expansion in Brazil. The bill provides for the creation of a national database of members of all criminal organizations in the country, which number around 90 across Brazil, particularly those of the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command. Among other planned measures is the introduction of the term"qualified criminal organization," which will apply to cases related to the control of territory or economic activities. This also includes the increase in the penalty from 8 to 15 years in prison for groups that try to control territories or economic activities through violence, coercion, or threats. Compared to other legislation, such as Italy's anti-mafia legislation, the package has been criticized for not adequately reflecting the evolution of Brazilian organized crime, which prosecutor Lincoln Gakiya told Infobae has reached levels comparable to those of the"Italian mafia." Just last week, São Paulo's Civil Police foiled a PCC plot to assassinate Gakiya and the state's prison coordinator, Roberto Medina, demonstrating that Brazil's drug war is increasingly a war against the state.
“The current situation is the result of decades of neglect and fragmented public policies. The problem will not be solved solely with shock operations that address the effects rather than the causes. The core of the crisis lies in the territorial control exercised by militias and factions, which replace the State wherever it is absent,” writes Rafael Alcadipani of the Getulio Vargas Foundation in the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo. “ Recovering this territory requires a coherent, permanent, and integrated strategy across the different levels of government. This includes a qualified and continuous presence of law enforcement, the rehabilitation of entire areas, the guarantee of decent public services, and concrete economic alternatives for those who live in these neighborhoods,” adds Alcadipani.
As for the Red Command, although Castro has been criticized for using its operations for political purposes in preparation for his gubernatorial bid in next year's elections, the group is indeed on the rise not only in Rio de Janeiro but throughout Brazil. In particular, a recent report by the Brazilian intelligence agency ABIN warns of the increasingly powerful role of the CV alongside the PCC on the border with Colombia, in the area known as the Shared Amazon. These two Brazilian groups are said to be negotiating directly with their Colombian counterparts for the purchase and passage of cocaine through Brazilian territory, primarily through the Solimões River route. On the Brazilian side, the CV is the faction that dominates drug trafficking in the Amazonian states of Amazonas, Pará, Acre, and Rondônia. Among the substances mentioned in the report are cocaine hydrochloride, but also cocaine base paste and marijuana. One of the main exit points for Amazonian drug trafficking is the port of Vila do Conde, in Barcarena, Pará, near Belém, which will host COP30. The location is considered strategic by criminal organizations because it offers direct access to the Atlantic Ocean and allows for easier evasion of controls. Furthermore, although still less frequent than river transport, air transport is gaining importance thanks to the proliferation of clandestine airstrips in the Amazon region, particularly in Venezuela, which is now a strategic point for connecting Colombian drug production with Brazilian territory. The ABIN document also highlights the use of semi-submersible vessels, the so-called"narco-boats," hand-built by Colombian technicians off the coasts of Pará and Amapá to transport large drug shipments to Africa and Europe. Some of these vessels have already been intercepted in African or European waters, with crews composed of Brazilians, Colombians, and Europeans, confirming the transnational nature of the operations. In addition to the Amazon, the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) is also growing in other states. In Salvador, in the state of Bahia, 12 people died last March when police intervened to stop an invasion by the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) in the Fazenda Coutos de Salvador favela, in a clash with the local criminal group Bonde do Maluco.
