Authorities have arrested members of an international gang that sold 43,000 guns to criminal organizations in Brazil.

Brazilian Federal Police, together with Paraguayan and US authorities, launched a mega-operation on Tuesday morning to arrest members of an international gang suspected of selling more than 43,000 weapons over the past three years. war between two of Brazil’s largest criminal gangs. As of 10:30 a.m. in Brasilia and 1:30 p.m. in Lisbon, five suspects had already been arrested in Brazil and 11 in Paraguay, including a general who until recently held a senior position in the Paraguayan Air Force.

According to the Federal Police, which, together with Paraguayan and US agents, set up a “military headquarters” in Brasilia to oversee the development of the international operation, the arms smuggling ring was based in Paraguay and was commanded by an Argentinean identified by the Brazilian. authorities, like Diego Hernan Dirisio, the subject of one of the arrest warrants, but who until now could not be found. His home in Paraguay, which was raided by federal agents from Brazil and Paraguay this morning, was found to contain a large arsenal of high-offensive weapons.

In total, in Brazil alone, federal police are attempting to execute 25 preventive arrest warrants, six temporary arrest warrants and 54 search and arrest warrants. Agents will continue to hunt criminals in four states of Brazil, in several parts of Paraguay and in the United States, where the criminal organization laundered huge profits from illegal activities.

In just three years, the gang is estimated to have earned at least €226 million through illegal arms sales to Brazil. The international criminal organization’s main clients were PCC, Primeiro Comando da Capital, the largest criminal group in São Paulo and Brazil, and CV, Comando Vermelho, the largest criminal group in Rio de Janeiro.

The investigation established that the gang purchased a large number of weapons, including machine guns, rifles, machine guns and large-caliber pistols, as well as a lot of ammunition, from manufacturers in European countries, namely the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia and Turkey. . In Paraguay, the guns had their serial numbers shaved off and were given to another criminal group operating in the border area between Brazil and Paraguay, which in turn forced them into Brazil and into the hands of the two largest organized crime groups in Paraguay. a country.