The Brazilian Federal Police announced that one of the country’s main criminal leaders surrendered on Sunday after negotiations with the authorities.
Luiz Antônio da Silva Braga, better known as Zinho, is the main leader of the largest militia group in the state of Rio de Janeiro. He had 12 arrest warrants issued and had been a fugitive since 2018, according to the Federal Police.
After the procedures derived from the arrest, Zinho was transferred to the Legal Medical Institute and then, sent to state prison systemreported the Federal Police.
Militias emerged in the 1990s, made up mainly of former police officers, firefighters and soldiers who wanted to combat illegality in the neighborhoods. They charged residents for protection and other services, and more recently operated in the drug trade.
Zinho’s group dominates the western area of Rio de Janeiro, where several members were killed in recent years.
The executive secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Ricardo Cappelli, said on social networks that the Federal Police carried out several investigations until reaching Zinho.
“It’s work, work and work,” Capelli wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
Zinho’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment from the Associated Press news agency.
Militias are believed to control about 10% of the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, according to a study last year by the nonprofit Fogo Cruzado institute and a security-focused research group at the Fluminense Federal University.
The militias are different from the drug gangs that control important areas of Rio.
The area dominated by Zinho’s group made headlines in October, when militia members set fire to at least 35 buses in apparent retaliation for the police killing of one of their leaders. The attack occurred far from tourist areas of Rio and caused no casualties, but demonstrated the militias’ ability to cause chaos and damage.
Source: TSF
