Overview
- About 2,500 state agents swept the Complexo do Alemão and Complexo da Penha before dawn to serve warrants in the operation dubbed Contención.
- Gunmen resisted with drones dropping explosives and burning vehicles as barricades, while schools and clinics closed and roughly 200,000 residents saw transit disrupted.
- Authorities reported major seizures of rifles and drugs with counts still being reconciled, and detainees include alleged CV figures Thiago do Nascimento Mendes (Belão do Quitungo) and Nicolas Fernandes Soares.
- Governor Cláudio Castro called the violence “narcoterrorism” and said the state lacked federal support, a claim the government disputed after an emergency meeting that set ministerial travel and offered federal prison transfers.
- Rights groups and the Rio state assembly’s human-rights commission, led by Dani Monteiro, condemned the toll and pressed for transparent accounting and investigations into the operation.