Police, military invade slums in Rio de Janeiro

Brazilian police backed by armoured military vehicles have invaded Rio de Janeiro’s biggest slum.

Hundreds of black-clad, rifle-armed officers began swarming into the Rocinha shantytown early yesterday.

Experts say it is the most important step yet in bringing security to Rio de Janeiro before it hosts matches in the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.

About 100,000 people live in Rocinha, which is the biggest drug distribution point in Rio. The slum straddles a green mountainside above upmarket neighbourhoods.

The action is part of a policing programme that sees elite police units force heavily armed drug gangs from shantytowns they have controlled for decades, before authorities set up a permanent police presence.

“Rocinha is one of the most strategically important points for police to control in Rio de Janeiro,” said Paulo Storani, a security consultant and former captain in the elite BOPE police unit leading the raid.

“The pacification of Rocinha means that authorities have closed a security loop around the areas that will host most of the Olympic and World Cup activities.”

The Rocinha slum is home to about 100,000 people living in flimsy shacks that sprawl over a mountainside separating some of Rio’s richest neighbourhoods. The location has made it one of the most lucrative and largest drug distribution points in the city.

Some estimates say the Friends of Friends gang that has controlled Rocinha and the neighbouring Vidigal slum make more than $50 million in drug sales annually. Much of the sales are to tourists staying in the posh beach neighbourhoods of Leblon, Ipanema and Copacabana and to middle and upper-class Brazilians who live in them.