RIO DE JANEIRO ? Elite police units backed by armored military vehicles and helicopters marched into Rio's largest slum before dawn Sunday, the most ambitious operation yet to bring security to a seaside city long known for its violence.
Within hours, officials said the Rocinha slum had been taken over without a shot being fired.
The action in Rocinha is part of a campaign to drive heavily armed drug gangs out of the city's slums, where the traffickers have ruled for decades.
Authorities vow to continue the crackdown and stabilize Rio's security before it hosts the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. Officials are counting on those events to signal Brazil's arrival as a global economic, political and cultural power.
Hours into the operation, not a shot had been heard in Rocinha. Special police units worked their way up the steep, winding roads as black Huey helicopters pounded the air above, crisscrossing the hill and flying low. Residents peeked out of their windows, staring down at the police and journalists.
One resident applauded the move. "Tell the world we're not all drug traffickers! We're working people and now they're coming to liberate us," a man yelled as police rolled by.
Marisa Costa da Silva, 54, who runs a small candy shop at the base of the slum, was less sure. "Lord knows if there will be war or peace, or even if thing will be better if police take this slum," she said. "We've heard they've been abusive to slum residents in other places they've taken. I have no idea what to expect."
Police also went into nearby Vidigal slum, but the armored personnel carriers there were having trouble climbing the steep roads that drug gangs had apparently covered in oil.
The Rocinha slum is home to about 100,000 people living in flimsy shacks that sprawl over a mountainside separating some of Rio's richest neighborhoods. The location has made it one of the most lucrative and largest drug distribution points in the city.
"Rocinha is one of the most strategically important points for police to control in Rio de Janeiro," said Paulo Storani, a security consultant and former captain in the elite BOPE police unit leading the invasion. "The pacification of Rocinha means that authorities have closed a security loop around the areas that will host most of the Olympic and World Cup activities."
Some estimates say the Friends of Friends gang that has controlled Rocinha and Vidigal makes more than $50 million in drug sales annually. Much of the sales are to tourists staying in the posh beach neighborhoods of Leblon, Ipanema and Copacabana and to middle and upper class Brazilians who live in them.
"This action is a huge blow to the structure of drug trafficking in Rio de Janeiro and against the second-largest drug faction," Storani said. "Beyond that, it's essential to have security in this area simply because of the huge number of people who circulate there."
Before dawn, around 4 am, armored vehicles and hundreds of officers started to climb into the steep, hillside community. Two hours later officers informed residents the area was under control, Alberto Pinheiro Neto, head of operations for the military police, said at a news conference.
Law enforcement agents will remain in Rocinha for an undetermined period of time, he said.
Officials are now calling on the shantytown's residents to help law enforcement find drugs and weapons hidden in the community. The head of Rio's civil police, Marta Rocha, made a special appeal to the "mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts," to collaborate with the peacekeeping effort.
"Women of Rocinha, give us this information, bring us the news that will allow us to sweep through this territory that belong to the people of Rocinha," she said. "The day is starting. There is no going back. I am sure the population will help."
One drug trafficker known as "Igor" was arrested Sunday morning, the chief of the Baixada Fluminense police's homicide department, Rafael Menezes, told GloboNews television.
The invasion of Rocinha comes near the end of a watershed year in the fight against drug gangs that rule more than half of Rio's 1,000 slums, where about one-third of the city's 6 million residents live.
Rio's program of installing permanent "police pacification units" in slums started in 2008.
The slums initially targeted were not among the most violent. But last November, gangs struck back with a weeklong spree of attacks, burning buses, robbing motorists on highways and spreading fear and chaos. At least 36 people died in the violence, mostly suspected drug traffickers fighting with police.
The surge of violence prodded police to invade the much-feared Alemao complex of slums on Rio's north side, near a highway leading to the international airport. Police routed the gangsters and took control within hours, imbuing the city with a new confidence that its security woes might be overcome even though most gang leaders had escaped capture.
A year later, the operation in Rocinha comes after careful planning and at a time chosen by authorities.
Police officials openly announced when they planned to invade Rocinha. They've used that tactic before and say it's led to fewer firefights during the incursions, with gang members either fleeing or simply laying down their weapons before police arrive. Up to 2,000 officers are expected to be involved.
In recent days, police set up roadblocks at Rocinha's entrances to capture the slum's fleeing drug kingpins.
The effort paid off Thursday, when police captured Antonio Bonfim Lopes, known as "Nem," who was the most-wanted drug trafficker in Rio. He was found hiding in the trunk of a car. His top lieutenants were also captured in recent days.
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