Brazil’s deadliest police raid in history exploded across Rio de Janeiro this week, claiming 132 lives, including four officers, in a 48-hour blitz against Comando Vermelho (CV), the iron-fisted gang that has ruled Rio’s favelas for over 50 years. Codenamed Operation Containment, the assault began at dawn on October 28 with 2,500 elite officers, Black Hawk helicopters, and armored “caveirão” vehicles storming slums like Complexo da Penha and Alemão. Using drones and snipers, police herded suspects into forested hillsides for lethal ambushes. Bodies lay in alleys; schools shut; buses burned. Rio’s governor called it “war.” Human rights groups called it a massacre.

Comando Vermelho is no ordinary gang—it’s a narco-state within a state. With 30,000 members, CV runs cocaine superhighways, smuggles AK-47s, extorts shopkeepers, and even sells bootleg Wi-Fi in the slums. Born in the 1970s military dictatorship, it began when political prisoners taught street thugs guerrilla discipline in Cândido Mendes prison. That prison pact became a criminal empire. By the 1980s, CV controlled 80% of Rio’s cocaine and enforced its laws with public executions. Today, its red flag flies over 1,000 favelas, where kids grow up saluting gang bosses like warlords.

The Red Command has gone global. From Rio, it spread into the Amazon, hijacking river routes and jungle airstrips to move Bolivian coke to Europe. This week’s raids killed CV commanders from Amazonas, Bahia, Goiás, and Espírito Santo. A 2025 security report warns: Amazon murders surged 40% as CV battles rivals over drug highways hidden in the rainforest. CV also wars with PCC (Brazil’s largest syndicate), ex-cop militias, and Third Command gangs—turning Brazil’s prisons and streets into battlefields.

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Police planned the assault for two months after CV reconquered lost favelas in 2022 bloodbaths. A February truce with arch-rival PCC collapsed in weeks, sparking prison massacres and bus torchings. Governor Cláudio Castro declared: “Rio is at war.” He deployed snipers, robots, and facial recognition to crush CV before global eyes arrived. But 132 corpses later, protests erupted, schools closed, and Brazil’s Supreme Court opened an urgent probe into police brutality.

The timing is explosive: Rio hosts the C40 mayors’ summit, Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, and preps for COP30 in Belém. Brazil wants to show a clean, green, safe image. Instead, the world sees war-zone footage, grieving mothers, and bullet-riddled favelas. As world leaders land next week, Rio burns—and Comando Vermelho vows revenge. The Red Command is wounded, but far from dead.

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