RIO DE JANEIRO BRAZIL – The Public Prosecutor of Rio de Janeiro (MPRJ) issued eight preventive arrest warrants and ordered 19 searches and seizures in an operation investigating a scheme of police corruption on June 30.
The target of Operation ‘Carta de Corso’ is a group that operated from March 2018 to March 2021 within the Department of Repression of Crimes against Intangible Property (DRCPIM) of the Civil Police.
As of 7:20 AM today, six people have been arrested, including a detective and four other police officers.
According to the MPRJ, the group demanded payments from store owners of Teresa Street, a textile trade center in Petrópolis, in the hilly region north of Rio de Janeiro, so they could continue selling counterfeit clothing.
The group, according to the investigation, had two cores. One operated by threatening shopkeepers and collecting the bribe, the other illegally used the structure of the Civil Police to suppress shopkeepers who refused to pay the amounts demanded. In these actions, the police officers falsified evidence and made false reports.
The Civil Police said that its Internal Affairs Department has already opened a case and will request information from the MPRJ about today’s operation to supplement the investigation.