(MENAFN) A police operation targeting a drug trafficking gang in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas resulted in at least 119 fatalities, authorities confirmed on Wednesday, following clashes in impoverished neighborhoods, according to reports.

The raid, involving 2,500 police officers and soldiers in the Penha and Complexo do Alemão areas, initially reported 60 suspects killed. The revised toll includes 115 suspected criminals and four police officers, with bodies discovered in a wooded area where suspects had been camouflaged during firefights. Rio state police secretary Felipe Curi said residents removed clothing and equipment from some bodies. “These individuals were in the woods, equipped with camouflage clothing, vests and weapons. Now, many of them were found in their underwear or shorts, without any gear, as if they had gone through a portal and changed clothes,” Curi noted.

Rio’s state public defender’s office listed the death toll at 132. Victor Santos, head of the state’s security department, stated, “The elevated lethality of the operation was expected but not desired.”

Authorities said the operation aimed to curb the territorial expansion of the Comando Vermelho criminal group, which resisted security forces using heavy gunfire and grenades launched from drones. Police forces, traveling in 32 armored vehicles, entered the northern neighborhoods in the early morning hours.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski expressed shock at the operation’s scale and were surprised that such a large-scale action occurred without prior notification to the federal government.

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