Rio’s Record-Lethal Raid Draws Intensifying Oversight as New Atlas Charts Violence Shifting to Smaller Cities

Overview

• The Atlas da Violência 2025 finds a 17-fold gap between the 20 most and least violent municipalities and confirms a national decline in homicides since 2018 with violence increasingly concentrated in medium and small cities, particularly in the North and Northeast.
• Operação Contenção on October 28 left 121 dead, including four police officers, with 118 weapons seized and 113 arrests, and the atlas criticizes the action as a media spectacle with heavy social and economic costs.
• Rio’s military police intelligence subsecretary said the raid’s impact on the Comando Vermelho was “ínfimo,” describing the outcome as largely symbolic rather than structurally damaging to the faction.
• Oversight is expanding as STF minister Alexandre de Moraes ordered evidence preservation and a federal inquiry that the Federal Police says is underway, the CNMP cleared the Federal Prosecution Service to accompany the case, the OAB‑RJ created an observatory, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urged an independent investigation.
• Intelligence officials report the Comando Vermelho’s presence across much of Brazil, authorities launched a joint federal–state Office to Combat Organized Crime and a Senate CPI will probe the raid’s planning and aims, while the Rio governor signals further large-scale operations.