Brazil­ian au­thor­i­ties in the state of Pará and law en­force­ment agen­cies seized 16 AK-47 ri­fles that were trans­port­ed on a ship that had de­part­ed from Suri­name.

The po­lice said that the op­er­a­tion by the Mil­i­tary Po­lice with the sup­port of the Civ­il Po­lice was car­ried out on Tues­day and that four men have been ar­rest­ed.

Pub­lic Se­cu­ri­ty and De­fense Min­is­ter Ualame Macha­do said Tues­day’s haul was the largest seizure of guns in the state in the last eight years, not­ing “this seizure demon­strates the work done by the se­cu­ri­ty forces and re­sults in the dis­man­tling of or­ga­nized crime, slow­ing and curb­ing crime in Pará”.

Colonel Dil­son Ju­nior said that “the seizure is a huge blow to crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tions.”

The au­thor­i­ties said that they car­ried out the op­er­a­tion fol­low­ing an anony­mous tip and that a team from the 31st Mil­i­tary Po­lice Bat­tal­ion of Abaete­tu­ba went on pa­trols along the rivers and iden­ti­fied the ves­sel named ‘Be­to’.

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, the boat was in­ter­cept­ed five kilo­me­tres from the Maratauíra Riv­er, near Abaete­tu­ba, in the north­east of the state. Six­teen heavy firearms and am­mu­ni­tion were found on the ship hid­den in cylin­ders.

The four men who have been ar­rest­ed will be charged with be­ing mem­bers of a crim­i­nal as­so­ci­a­tion, as well as il­le­gal pos­ses­sion of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion and smug­gling.

PARA­MARI­BO, Suri­name, Nov 8, CMC -

CMC/af/ir/2024