Brazilian police have killed 25 armed bank robbers after a series of bank heists.
Fifty policemen raided two farms outside the southern city of Varginha on Sunday after being tipped off that the thieves were preparing attacks on several local bank branches.
Aristides Amaral Junior, a spokesperson for the highway police, stated that although our intention was to make arrests they were unable to recognize us. They had weapons of war. Tons of gasoline, explosives.
On the first farm, 18 and seven suspects were killed. The security forces suffered no casualties.
Photos revealed a large inventory of assault rifles, shotguns, and ammunition that were seized in one sweep.
Following the raid on two farms near Varginha, police recovered a large quantity of weaponry, ammunition and explosives as well as stolen cars.
The military took a trove full of weaponry from the robbers. Shotguns and assault rifles were lined up in front a pile of magazines.
A high-powered rifle seized by the military police following the raid on two farms near Varginha, Minas Gerais State
Brazil has been the victim of a series of professional and elaborate bank heists. These heists have been dubbed “the new banditry”, and involve shock-and–awe tactics as well as the use of modern weapons and gadgets.
The heists follow a similar pattern. When the vaults are full of cash, heavily-armed gangsters storm into the towns at night to set off explosives and fire weapons to stop the police.
Experts believe that the displays are meant to panic local police forces that believe they lack the firepower and manpower to respond.
At the end of August, the group which police raided on Sunday caused mayhem in the city of Araçatuba, blowing up vehicles and tying hostages to their cars during assaults on several banks.
The pandemonium resulted in the deaths of three people.
‘In Araçatuba, the vehicles were painted black,’ Rodolfo César Morotti Fernandes, spokesman of an elite Brazilian police force that assisted in the operation, told local media.
“One of the vehicles that we captured was already painted black, and we found black spray paint to show the similarity.”
Officers say that the group also unleashed chaos in the city of Criciúma in southern Santa Catarina where at least 30 gangsters in 10 cars stormed a police station and held up Banco do Brasil.
Officials referred to it as the largest bank robbery state history has ever seen.
Following Sunday’s raid on the farms, Captain Layla Brunnela, of the Military Police, said: ‘It is probably our largest operation against this type of crime in the country.
“Many suspects were going bank robbery and were surprised by our intelligence services.”
After that, Lieutenant Colonel Rodolfo Mootti Fernandes, Commander of the Police Special Operations Battalion, said, “When we started the operation we were shot at, and so the military had to react to the unjust attack in order to protect their lives,” during a briefing held in Minas Gerais.
The Brazilian police, who have a reputation for not allowing violence to stop them, are again in the spotlight due to the high number of victims.
In May, there were international headlines when a dawn raid on a favela in Rio de Janeiro left 25 people dead.
Gruesome images showed family homes splattered with blood from gangsters who fled the police.
Protests erupted after the incident and police claimed that they had executed the alleged criminals. The allegations were denied by police.