Rio de Janeiro has a line of bodies laid out on a tarp after a major operation.

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The Secretary of the Military Police of Rio, Marcelo de Menezes, presented details this Wednesday, the 29th, of the mega-operation against Comando Vermelho . He highlighted as a distinguishing feature what was classified by the police themselves as the “BOPE Wall”, formed in the wooded area of the Penha Complex, in the northern zone of the city.

"The BOPE troops incurded into the highest area of the Serra da Misericórdia mountain, which divides these two complexes (Penha and Alemão), operating what we called the 'BOPE Wall,' a containment line formed by police officers who pushed the criminals to the top of the mountain," he said during the security forces' press conference.

According to him, the strategy had a “clear objective: to protect the law-abiding population living in that region.” Menezes further stated, “The vast majority of the confrontations, almost all of them, occurred in wooded areas. And the choice to confront them was made by the criminals, by the drug traffickers. Those who wanted to be arrested were arrested; you only need to look at the large number of people arrested in this operation.”

The top officials of public security in Rio de Janeiro also released updated figures. According to the State Secretary of Civil Police of Rio, Felipe Curi, by 1 p.m., the government had counted 119 deaths in the operation, including 4 police officers. This number surpasses that of the Carandiru massacre.

“Yesterday, 58 were neutralized, and today, adding the bodies found in the woods, plus another 61, we have 119 dead, of which 115 were narcoterrorists, and four victims who were our police officers. These are the updated numbers of those neutralized who were admitted to our Forensic Medical Institute,” said Curi.

See the other figures released by the government:

• Arrests: 113, of which 33 are from other states
• Teenagers apprehended: 10;
• Weapons: 118, including 90 rifles, 26 pistols, and one revolver;
• 14 explosive devices ;
• hundreds of magazines - still being counted;
• thousands of rounds of ammunition - still being counted;
• tons of drugs - still being counted;

Earlier, speaking to journalists, the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Cláudio Castro (PL), said that the only victims of the mega-operation are the 4 police officers killed.

The statement was given at a press conference, shortly after the Public Defender's Office of Rio de Janeiro stated that there are at least 132 dead in the operation against the Comando Vermelho (CV).

"Those were the real four victims. Yesterday, the only victims were the four police officers," the governor stated.

Line of bodies at the Penha Complex

The operation was the deadliest in the state's history. Residents of the Penha Complex, in the northern part of Rio de Janeiro, one of the locations where the operation took place, carried at least 60 bodies to São Lucas Square during the early hours of Wednesday, the 29th, after the operation.

Rio de Janeiro returned to stage 1 at 6 am this Wednesday, according to the City Hall's Operations Center. Currently, public transportation is operating normally. All roads are open to traffic.

The region had entered stage 2 at 1:48 PM on Tuesday, due to police incidents that intermittently closed several streets in the north, west, and southwest zones of the city, impacting transportation and the movement of the population throughout the city.