Rio Police Detain Alleged CV ‘Barricade Mentor’ in Financial Crackdown

Overview

• Police identified the suspect as Cosme Rogério Ferreira Dias, accused of financing and supplying materials for fortified street barricades while posing as a recycling entrepreneur.
• Judges blocked R$217 million in assets and authorities interdicted eight scrap yards linked to the scheme, with a large sum of cash seized at the suspect’s home.
• About 17 people were detained, including Dias’s wife, Cyntia dos Santos Ferreira, and search warrants were executed in São Paulo and Minas Gerais.
• Investigators say the buying and selling of stolen copper through recycling yards funded barricade construction, armed surveillance, and drug-sale points used for territorial control.
• The operation comes a day after the state launched the Barricada Zero campaign to remove more than 13,000 blockades, as police leadership cast today’s moves as a direct blow to the gang’s economic structure following scrutiny of prior lethal raids.