One person dies and 11 are arrested by police in Paraisópolis

Elaine Patricia Cruz - Reporter for Agência Brasil

One person died this Thursday (16) after a police operation carried out in the Paraisópolis community, in the south of the city of São Paulo. The Hidden Connections operation aimed to dismantle a gang specialized in crimes of robbery, murder and receiving stolen goods such as cell phones, wedding rings and motorcycles. Eleven people were arrested during the police action.

“During the operation, one of the individuals, at the time of his arrest, attempted to kill a police officer by shooting him. And, in order to repel this unjust aggression and neutralize the individual, he died. This fact is being investigated,” said the Chief of the Civil Police, Artur Dian. No police officers were injured in the operation.

The investigation sought to identify those responsible for robberies and murders, as well as those who received stolen goods, and suspects who supplied weapons and counterfeit license plates. In addition to the arrests, the São Paulo court issued 43 search and seizure warrants.

The Chief of the Civil Police, Artur Dian, said that the investigations into these crimes began last year when the attempted robbery and murder of a major in the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) was solved. 

“All this evidence and indications gathered during this investigation led us to robust material that allowed us to request 36 arrest warrants and more than 40 search warrants in the Paraisópolis community. Today we launched this operation which resulted in the execution of 15 arrest warrants, with 11 [people] arrested in the Paraisópolis community and four warrants served in prisons, since these individuals are already incarcerated,” he explained in a press conference. 

One of the deaths that prompted the operation was that of police chief Josenildo Belarmino de Moura, which occurred in January of this year. According to investigators, two of the people arrested today had received a stolen cell phone from the same perpetrators involved in the police officer's death. Four people, including the shooter, have already been arrested.

“The hidden connections, as the operation is called, are being revealed through the investigations. It's a large chain with many links. Our idea is to break this chain in order to stop this criminal cycle,” said Ronaldo Sayeg, director of the State Department of Criminal Investigations (Deic).

According to Sayeg, this criminal cycle begins with theft and continues with the delivery of stolen goods to a facilitator. This facilitator then passes the goods on to the receiver, who puts the material back into the formal or clandestine market, or even sells it abroad. 

"It starts with the purchase of gold or a cell phone. Then comes the thief, who steals the cell phone. After that, there's the receiver, who will put that gold or cell phone back on the market or out of the country. Our idea is to break that link, that chain," he said.