Red Command members responded with gunfire and drones, barricading roads with buses and lighting cars on fire, causing chaos and panic.
Castro, a protege and ally of right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro, said the operation was the largest in state history.
The “only victims”, he told reporters today, were the four police officers who died. “Apart from the loss of the officers’ lives, the rest of the operation was a success.”
Brazil’s second-largest city woke today to count its dead. Hours after state officials put the death toll at 64, favela residents laid more than 70 bodies out in rows on the ground, Brazilian media reported.
Family members lifted sheets, recognised loved ones and screamed.
The Rio state public defender’s office, an independent agency, said it had confirmed 132 deaths and was still counting. The office had a team on the ground.
State authorities reported 115 suspected criminals and four police officers dead. They did not release identities.
Federal Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski said the dead included “innocent civilians”.
Police said they also arrested 113 people, 10 of them minors, and seized 118 weapons.
Favela residents described having difficulty leaving their homes during more than 12 hours of gunfire, Brazilian media reported.
Castro said police were “striking a hard blow against crime”.
“The police will not leave the streets until the situation is fully under control,” he said in a video posted to social media. “We will not back down.”
Castro said violence in Rio was no longer a matter of “ordinary crime” but “narcoterrorism”.
Police raids against criminal groups embedded in favelas are common in Rio, particularly under conservative administrations and before international events. The city is to host pre-Cop30 events next week before Brazil launches the climate summit.
What distinguished yesterday’s operation was the scale of the killing.
The toll reported by state police was more than four times the 28 people killed in the state’s previous deadliest police action, the 2021 Jacarezinho massacre, during Castro’s first term.
Victor dos Santos, Rio’s public security secretary, told the Washington Post this year that police must fight the gangs’ territorial expansion because “territory means revenue for criminals”.
“They exploit every service beyond drugs - water, electricity, gas, internet,” he said.
“The mafia used to do that; the mafia was also territorial.”
The raid followed more than a year of investigation, police said.
Violence and how to prevent it is one of the most sensitive political debates for Brazilians, surpassing the economy and healthcare as a top concern in recent polls.
Castro urged leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to provide greater support in fighting crime.
Lewandowski said he had received no formal request for co-operation from Rio’s state Government ahead of the operation. He described it as “extremely violent”.
“It is deeply regrettable that security officers - and, worse yet, innocent civilians - lose their lives,” he told reporters. “Combating organised crime requires planning.”
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