Brazil thwarts plot to kill senator, prosecutors

Rio de Janeiro, Mar 22 (EFE).- Brazil’s Federal Police dismantled on Wednesday a criminal ring that planned to carry out simultaneous attacks on politicians and officials in four of the country’s 26 states and the Federal District of Brasilia, Justice Minister Flavio Dino said.

The most prominent of the alleged targets is Sen. Sergio Moro, a former judge who served as justice minister under the previous president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Attacks were to be carried out in Brasilia and the states of Sao Paulo, Parana, Rondonio, and Mato Grosso do Sul, Dino said, adding that 120 Federal Police arrested 11 people and executed 24 search warrants in predawn raids.

Moro said that the plot was hatched by the First Command of the Capital (PCC), seen as the largest criminal organization in South America.

The PCC, whose main activity is drug trafficking, has been accused of being behind the May 2022 assassination of Paraguay’s top anti-mafia prosecutor, Marcelo Pecci, as he was honeymooning on a beach in Colombia.

“I will speak this afternoon in the Senate about the PCC’s plans for reprisals against me, my family, and other public agents,” Moro said on social media.

While justice minister, Moro ordered several jailed PCC capos transferred to maximum-security prisons and held in solitary confinement.

One of the inmates affected was reputed PCC boss Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho, known as “Marcola.”

Investigators found that the PCC was also anxious to strike Moro because he restricted conjugal visits for inmates in federal prisons.

The plotters rented properties, including an office, near the residences of their intended targets.

Moro became famous for overseeing Lava Jato (Car Wash), the largest anti-corruption probe in Brazil’s history, in the context of which put former two-term President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva behind bars for 580 days.

But the conviction and sentence were later overturned after revelations of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct and Lula defeated Bolsonaro last October to win a third mandate as Brazil’s president. EFE mat/dr