Brazil Intensifies Homicide Probes With PM Arrests, Interpol Capture and High‑Profile Pursuits

Overview

• São Paulo’s DHPP led to the detention of five additional BAEP military police officers in the November execution of merchant Luis Francisco Caselli, with suspects taken to the Romão Gomes military prison after evidence tied a vehicle tracker to the plot.
• In Rio’s Mangueira neighborhood, a police pursuit near a samba school rehearsal ended in a shootout, a car plunging onto railway tracks, one suspect dead and about eight bystanders injured, with a replica firearm and phones seized.
• In Cáceres (MT), 14‑year‑old Murilo Pessoa Teixeira was killed in an attack linked by investigators to rival gang dynamics, as two 17‑year‑olds were apprehended and police warned that factions exploit lenient juvenile measures to recruit teens.
• In Pelotas (RS), the fatal shooting of a rural producer during a Brigada Militar operation remains disputed, as the widow gives formal testimony and the force’s corregedoria opens an inquiry alongside a civil police investigation.
• Federal agents at Confins airport arrested a suspect wanted for the June 2025 killing of app driver Júlio César Santana Brazil Filho after his name was added to Interpol’s Red Notice, with transfer to Salvador pending.