Brazil: arrests in gang suspected of preparing political assassinations
Brazilian police have arrested several members of one of the country's leading criminal groups. © Rodolfo Buhrer / REUTERS
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Raid in Brazil against one of the groups that dominates drug trafficking in Latin America, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Commando of the Capital, in English). Nine people were arrested on Wednesday, March 22, 2023, and searches were conducted in Brasilia and several states.
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The federal police believe that members of this group were planning to assassinate political figures. "Several senior officials, a prosecutor, or a senator" are among those targeted by the capital's First Commando, according to Lula's current justice minister, Flavio Dino.
The latter does not specify the names of those targeted, but this senator would be Sergio Moro, the former Minister of Justice under Jair Bolsonaro, assures the Brazilian press and police sources consulted by the France Press Agency. When he was Jair Bolsonaro's minister, he ordered the transfer to high-security prisons of about twenty members of the Primeiro Comando da Capital, and in particular its historic leader, Marcola, four years ago.
Jair Bolsonaro accuses the left without evidence
Sergio Moro first became known in Brazil as a judge. Because in 2017, he convicted Lula for corruption. A conviction then overturned by the Supreme Court, for which Sergio Moro had been "biased" in this trial.
Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently in the United States, accuses on social networks the left of being behind the plan to assassinate his former minister. But the far-right ex-president presented no evidence to support his remarks.
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- Brazil
- Jair Bolsonaro
- Criminality