CRIMES Brazil Claims Success Bend Narcotics Gang

Brazil, Sunday (28/11), claimed success in its fight against violence in the slums of Rio de Janeiro

after a military operation that has never happened to drive out drug traffickers and securing the famous slum areas of the city.

A total of 2600 paratroopers, marines and army-backed elite police helicopters and armored personnel carriers led the attack before dawn in the castle of narcotics traffickers in Grota, a city within a city into a lawless region with a population of about 400,000 people. Grota is just one of 15 favelas of Complexo do Alemao form, a vast labyrinth of slums in Rio that will host soccer matches and Olympic Games 2014 World Cup 2016.

Security forces did not mention the number of gang members, who were targeted operation, which successfully captured. But police said they seized 40 tons of marijuana, which is already packed and ready to be sent, from several houses in the Grota. The police then formed a long human chain, a snaking in a narrow alley, the streets are steep, in order to reduce drug-drug into a waiting truck on the main road in the area is lower. According to media reports, another 200 kilograms of cocaine was also seized in the area.

"Conquest is a decisive step forward for our public safety policies," said Governor of the State of Rio, Sergio Cabral, told TV Globo. "Today, we opened a new page in the history of Rio." Although there are cries of victory and the rhetoric that overflowed from the senior officials, remains to be seen whether the city, as it prepares to host the 2016 Olympics and 2014 World Cup, it has been made safer.

"This is our big day," said military police spokesman Col. Lima Castro told reporters. "We will restore this community to people from Rio de Janeiro." One third of Rio's six million inhabitants live in slums perched on a steep hillside.

Complexo do Alemao is the basis for organized crime groups and the Red Command last Thursday police said they had raided and involved a gun battle with about 500 to 600 narcotics dealers. The fighting on Sunday in the narrow alleys and winding road Garota and deadlock in the region almost a week mengahkiri battle that is intended to make the Rio becomes a safer place. Compared to Thursday, authorities said on Sunday the resistance is much weaker because of the security forces tightened their grip slowly with snipers posted on tall buildings and armies around the slum.

From house to house searches conducted at Grota. Soldiers and police combing the area to look for people who were injured in the violence, which has killed 35 people over six days, and to search for weapons and drugs.

Issues untidiness and organized crime is nothing new in Rio, but now, since Brazil emerged as a global economic and political players, there is some urgency to resolve the problem. The city's beaches will also soon become the world spotlight as host who organized the 2014 World Cup and then the Olympics 2016. "We will do everything so that the good people defeat those who prefer to live in a crime," said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva earlier in the week.