Brazil Criminal Gang with Plans to Attack Public Servants Busted

By BERT HOOVER Mar 22 2023, 23:19 PM EDT

Federal police initiated an operation on Wednesday to dismantle a Brazil criminal gang that planned to carry out murderous attacks on police officers and public servants, according to Justice Minister Flavio Dino and other authorities, adding that murder and kidnapping for ransom were also expected to be part of the attacks.

"A murder plot against several public officials (among them a senator and a prosecutor) was investigated and identified. Today, the Federal Police are making arrests and searches against this gang," Dino said on Twitter.

Senator Sergio Moro, a former judge, also confirmed on Twitter that he and his family were intended targets of the gangs.

The plot was orchestrated by the criminal organization First Capital Command (PCC) and had no political motivation, a government minister told Reuters.

Investigators claim that the PCC has developed increasingly sophisticated ways for money laundering and has expanded to dominate cocaine and gun shipments in Brazil because of its recent fast growth.

The federal police reported that four temporary arrest orders, seven preventive arrest warrants, and 24 search and seizure warrants are now being executed.

Mato Grosso do Sul, Parana, Rondonia, and Sao Paulo are the locations of the operations involving 120 police officers.

Brazil Criminal Gang PPC and Senator Sergio Moro

Moro presided over the Carwash proceedings from 2014 to 2018, which resulted in the arrest of numerous high-profile politicians, including then-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was imprisoned for over a year, but his case was eventually overturned, AP noted.

The chief of the First Capital Command and almost 30 gang members were transferred to a federal prison shortly after Moro took office as Justice Minister under former President Jair Bolsonaro in 2019.

After leaving the government in April 2020, Moro ran for and won a seat in the Senate in the 2018 midterm elections, and Lula became president after the election.

Federal authorities examined a plot by the First Capital Command to abduct government employees in exchange for releasing the gang's imprisoned leader, Marco Willians Camacho, according to an online media UOL.

Sergio Moro's Wife Thanks the Police for Busting Brazil Criminal Gang

Rosangela Moro, Sergio Moro's wife, said they were among the intended targets, she wrote on a social media post, said Al Jazeera.

"I congratulate the police and agents involved in Operation Sequaz, which dismantled an organized crime scheme to assassinate authorities and their families, including my husband and my family," Rosangela Moro, a member of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies, wrote.

She tweeted her gratitude for the news on Wednesday and her intention to push for stricter regulations in Brazil to combat organized crime.

"Retaliation, in crime or politics, cannot persist. Today it's us. Tomorrow it could be you or your children," she wrote.

Rosangela thought that they and other officials had been attacked because they had the courage to face organized crime in their jobs.

She also said it is impossible to negotiate with any Brazil criminal gang, which she called "bandits."

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Bert Hoover

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