Brazilian police launch massive raid on Amazon drug cartel
700 Brazilian police deployed across five northern states in massive raid operation
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 21 November, 2015, 10:03pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 21 November, 2015, 10:03pm
Agence France-Presse in Rio de Janeiro
Brazilian officers conduct a raid.
Brazilian police on Friday launched a massive raid on an international drug cartel accused of killing dozens of people and setting up a "parallel state" in the Amazon region.
Some 700 officers deployed across five northern states with more than 100 arrest warrants, including ones for a town councillor and seven lawyers accused of working with the cartel, police said in a statement.
The authorities also have Interpol arrest notices targeting suspects in Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia and Peru. Charges include drug and arms trafficking, murder, kidnapping and money laundering.
Police said the investigation was prompted in April 2014 near the triple border between Brazil, Colombia and Peru when federal police stopped a riverboat transporting US$54,000 stashed in an air conditioning unit.
They said the money trail led them to a massive, previously unknown drug cartel operating in the region.
Authorities said the cartel had a similar structure to the Cali cartel in Colombia, one of the most powerful drug trafficking operations of the 1980s and 90s.
"With extreme violence, the group sought to consolidate a parallel state in the north of the country, with its own laws," police said.
The organisation has thousands of members, including a number of ringleaders who operated from within the prison system in Amazonas state, the statement added.
The group is responsible for dozens of murders in recent months in Manaus, the Amazonas state capital, it said. The cartel allegedly had links to local politicians and planned to put its own candidates up for local and legislative elections next year.
In six months of investigation, police have seized more than two tonnes of drugs worth an estimated US$5 million and impounded vehicles, boats, sub-machine guns and hand grenades, they said.
