Operação Contenção (Containment Operation) is the name of what has been defined as the largest and bloodiest anti-narcos operation in the history of Brazil: on 29 October 2,500 special police forces officers, with 32 armored vehicles and 12 demolition vehicles, blocked access to the favelas of the Alemão and Penha neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro for an operation against the Vermelho Command, the second largest criminal group in Brazil.
The death toll was 138, including 4 policemen, with the use of bomb drones, bursts of 200 bullets per minute and bodies found with gunshots to the back of the head. The violence used, and denounced by many inhabitants of the areas involved, has been compared to that of a war scenario, receiving harsh criticism from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other international organizations such as Human Rights Watch.
Police operation in the neighborhood of Alemão, Rio de Janeiro, in 2010. Source: Agência Brasil via Wikimedia Commons
Maxi anti-narcos operation in Rio de Janeiro
The raid was carried out in a densely populated area – around 280,000 people – and led to the arrest of 81 people, the seizure of 90 weapons – including war rifles – and the confiscation of 200 kilos of drugs. The objective was precisely to contain and counter the expansion of the Vermelho Command, a criminal group of more than 30,000 members dedicated to arms and drug trafficking, which for more than a year has been increasing its presence in Rio de Janeiro, becoming the second most powerful in Brazil after the First Capital Command (PCC), of Sao Paulo. Following the operation, the Vermelho Command seized around 70 buses to block roads in the north and south-east of Rio de Janeiro, using them as barricades and paralyzing part of the city. Schools, universities and health services have been suspended, causing serious inconvenience for the population.
The Containment operation also sparked harsh controversy against the governor of Rio de Janeiro Claudio Castro, a member of the Liberal Party (PL) of which the former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro is also a member. The violence used in the operation was motivated by the governor of Rio de Janeiro due to the absence of support from the federal government of Ignacio Lula da Silva, which, according to Castro, denied resources from the Ministry of Defense. Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski denied these statements, recalling that the Brazilian Constitution assigns responsibility for public order to individual states. The intervention of the federal police forces can only be permitted with an extraordinary decree, which must be promulgated by the President and ratified by Parliament.
The anti-narcos raid marked a watershed both for the high number of deaths and the violence used, and for the use of new weapons by the narcos, such as the use of drones to launch grenades against the special teams, through the action of a mechanical or electric detonator which allows the explosive to be released while keeping the drone in flight, so as to allow it to move away without exposing itself to risk.
The crime rate in Brazil and the causes of drug trafficking in Rio
Brazil has one of the highest crime rates in the world – in 2024 alone it recorded 38,772 murders – and is considered among the most dangerous Latin American countries, the fifth in Latin America after Venezuela, Ecuador, Guyana and Colombia. The rate of intentional homicide in 2023 was 19.28 per 100,000 inhabitants, a decrease from 20.08 in 2022 and 31.16 in 2017.
Drug and weapons trafficking remains one of the main activities of drug trafficking gangs but in recent years the latter have expanded their criminal activities, also starting to control sectors such as transport, polling stations and civil construction.
The drug trade in Rio de Janeiro has changed especially since the 1980s, with the entry of cocaine into the market. The Vermelho Command, involved in the clashes of 29 October, was born shortly before, in 1969, in the prison of Cândido Mendes, in Ilha Grande, from the union between criminal gangs and political prisoners of the dictatorship who only later extended their criminal activities outside the prison, differentiating them and also including bank robberies, drug trafficking, kidnappings and extortion.
Currently, the narcos in Brazil, in addition to controlling the territories of the favelas, have begun to infiltrate the police force and judiciary, with a constantly growing corruption rate, leveraging crucial economic and social problems in the country, such as extreme poverty, inequality and corruption. In Rio de Janeiro the situation is particularly complex and dangerous: in the last five years alone the police have killed 1,886 people in firefights. The population, especially in the favelas, lives in conditions of extreme violence, poverty and lack of education, which becomes fertile ground for criminal organizations and which makes residents often become victims of both criminal and police violence.
