Brazil Police Defend Belém Raid as Homicide Probes and Convictions Advance

Overview

• PF Director General Andrei Fernandes said the Belém operation that killed Marcello Victor Carvalho de Araújo followed legal protocols, and the force opened an inquest with forensic work and temporarily removed the involved agents from field duties.
• The MPF initiated a criminal investigative procedure into the shooting, and relatives dispute the PF version that the 24-year-old assaulted an agent and tried to seize a weapon.
• In São Paulo and Rio cases linked by investigators, Guarulhos police say Ana Paula Veloso Fernandes acted as a contracted killer in multiple homicides, including the alleged poisoning of Neil Correa da Silva arranged by his daughter; Ana Paula, her twin sister, and Michelle Paiva da Silva were arrested and the victim’s body was exhumed.
• In Praia Grande, police arrested Lucas Santos Oliveira on suspicion of femicide after the fatal stabbing of his ex-partner, Letícia da Silva Costa, in a home where their two-year-old child was present, with investigators reporting more than 30 wounds.
• Courts and police reported outcomes in other cases, including an 11-year sentence for physician Lenise Fernandes Sampaio Cruz for attempted qualified homicide, a 31-year prison term for the murder and burning of Gesualdo Xavier de Oliveira in MS, and the arrest of a councilman’s first alternate in Alagoas on suspicion of ordering an attack on a sitting councillor.