RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — One of Brazil’s top criminal leaders was locked up in a 6-square-meter (65-square-foot) isolation cell at a maximum security prison to avoid being killed by rivals, authorities said Tuesday.
Luiz Antonio da Silva Braga, the boss of the largest militia group in the state of Rio de Janeiro, surrendered to federal police on Sunday. The criminal leader better known as Zinho was sent to the Bangu 1 prison, where drug traffickers and militia men are also held, Rio state’s public security secretary Victor Santos said.
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“Today, the custody of Zinho is the duty of the state,” he told GloboNews television. “He is now in a solitary mobile so that we can guarantee his physical integrity. “
Zinho’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press following his arrest.
Militias emerged in the 1990s, when they were basically made up of former police officers, firefighters, and foot soldiers seeking to combat lawlessness in their neighborhoods. They charged citizens for protection and other services, but recently they gave themselves over to the drug trade.
Zinho, whose defense forces dominate Rio’s western region, was the subject of 12 arrest warrants until he surrendered after negotiations. He had been on the run since 2018 and rose to the most sensitive position in the organization following the murder of his brother Wellington da Silva. Braga, known as Ecko, in 2021.
The militias are believed to control about 10% of Rio’s metropolitan area, according to a study last year by the non-profit Fogo Cruzado and a security-focused research group at the Fluminense Federal University. The militias are distinct from drug trafficking gangs that control important areas of Rio.
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A Brazilian federal police source who had access to the investigation told The Associated Press that Zinho feared he could be executed if he turned himself in to Rio state police. The source, who spoke under condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, also said the criminal leader will not join other inmates at Bangu for sunbathing and meals due to security reasons.
Rio’s governor, Claudio Castro, said Monday that Zinho was “Rio’s number one enemy” and praised his police force for his arrest.
“This is another victory of our police and security plan,” Castro said. “The disarticulation of these criminal groups with arrests, raids, financial blocking and the arrest of that mobster show we are on the right path,” the governor said.
Authorities also said they would protect Zinho in the expectation he could sign a plea deal that could implicate members of police forces, politicians and businessmen.
“It’s going to depend a lot on where the lawyers take you, what data you can offer and, obviously, the benefits you can get from that deal,” said Santos, Rio state’s secretary of public safety.
Ricardo Capelli, executive secretary of Brazil’s Justice Ministry, said the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will have to “strive to perceive the links between organized crime and its monetary movements. “No one is spreading terror in a third of the city of Rio. without having difficult connections,” he said on his social media.
The domain ruled by Zinho’s organization made headlines in October when gang members set fire to at least 35 buses in retaliation for the police murder of one of the crime boss’s most sensible allies. The attack caused no casualties, but underscored the skill of the militias. to wreak havoc and cause damage.
Zinho will be tried for forming a criminal organization, money laundering, extortion, bribery of the public and co-participation in August 2022 in the murder of former Rio councilman Jeronimo Guimarães Filho, better known as Jerominho.
Police investigators said Jerominho was shot on Zinho’s orders, in an attempt to rein in his criminal organization. Zinho’s lawyers have long denied any connection to the case. He is also under investigation in connection with several other killings of members of the defence forces.
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