Rio officials claim major Brazil gang used drones to attack policepublished at 10:45 GMT
10:45 GMT
Kayleen Devlin
BBC Verify senior journalist
Image source, EPA/Shutterstock
We’re looking into the violence that erupted yesterday in Rio de Janeiro, in which at least 64 people have been reportedly killed following a massive police anti-gang raid targeting the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) group – one of Brazil’s biggest crime and drug gangs.
Violent scenes are reported to have broken out in the north of the city – and the region’s governor has said four of the dead are police officers. In one video posted by the Rio government, there’s a video of a drone which they claimed was used by criminals to attack police officers, external in the Penha area of the city.
A reverse image search of the clip shows it was only posted online yesterday, but there are not enough details in the video that would allow us to identify its precise location.
Comando Vermelho is one of Brazil’s oldest criminal groups. They moved into the cocaine trade in the 1980s and while they originated in Rio, they have since grown into a major transnational drug trafficking organisation.
Earlier this year, I spoke to an indigenous leader from Peru who told me that the group were known to operate in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon as well.
Just last week, a report was released by Amazon Underworld claiming that the group had successfully entered areas of coca production on multiple parts of the Peruvian Amazon, as well as also operating in large swathes of the Brazilian Amazon too.