Brazil Intensifies Crime Crackdown With Deadly Bahia Raid and High-Profile Convictions

Overview

• Six suspects were killed in the Civil and Military Police’s Operação Desarticula in Itabela, Bahia, where officers seized rifles, pistols, other firearms, drugs, vehicles, and electronics from a rural hideout tied to a local faction.
• A São Paulo court convicted eight defendants in the kidnapping and extortion of model Luciana Curtis and her family, handing long sentences to alleged ringleader Gabriel “Zequinha” de Lima and executor Sérgio Silva Soares and ordering restitution to the victims.
• Security video in Franca shows a man abandoning the car of Raphaella Fachinelli, found fatally stabbed in Uberaba; police reported blood inside the vehicle and are probing purchases and Pix transfers possibly made with her card as the prime suspect remains at large.
• A Military Police operation in São Gonçalo’s Jardim Catarina shut the BR-101 in both directions for about an hour, left one resident wounded, and led to five arrests plus weapons and drug seizures as schools and multiple health units suspended services.
• In Belo Horizonte’s Pedreira Prado Lopes, a PMMG action left two suspected trafficking leaders dead and four people arrested, with Governor Romeu Zema praising the seizure of six firearms and a bulletproof car.