Militiaman Zinho is transferred to maximum security federal prison, in MS

The militia member considered one of the most dangerous in Rio de Janeiro left the state this Saturday (16). A convoy left the Gericinó Penitentiary Complex, in Bangu, in the west of Rio, carrying Luís Antônio da Silva Braga, known as Zinho. The criminal, who had been imprisoned and isolated since the end of last year, left the Laércio da Costa Pellegrino maximum security prison (Bangu 1) late in the morning.

The operation, carried out by the State Secretariat for Penitentiary Administration of Rio de Janeiro (Seap), involved 16 criminal police officers and five vehicles, who escorted Zinho and an accomplice from Bangu to Santos Dumont Airport, in the Center. There, under Lá, under tight security, the militiamen were handed over to five federal criminal police officers who will escort them to Campo Grande, in Mato Grosso do Sul. The destination was defined in conjunction with the National Secretariat for Penal Policies (Senappen ).

The decision to transfer the militia member to a federal prison was made on February 20th. In addition to Zinho, judge Elizabeth Machado Louro, from the 2nd Criminal Court of the Rio Court of Justice, ordered that one of the accomplices, Marcelo de Luna Silva, known as Boquinha, also be taken to a Differentiated Disciplinary Regime unit.

“It is noteworthy that the militia groups installed in this state, strongly structured and boasting capillarity throughout the country and even abroad, come every day, carrying out the terror inflicted, especially on residents of needy communities, taking them hostage, creating a situation of instability for years and without rest. All of this already points to the serious and concrete risk that the permanence of the aforementioned defendant on Fluminense soil represents the continuity of public security policies in development in the state of Rio de Janeiro, such a worsening of its ill-fated dominance”, wrote the judge in the decision. .

Still according to Louro's argument, “such circumstances are also supporting the need for nationals to be subjected to a Differentiated Disciplinary Regime, given their ability to coordinate with their loose henchmen, imposing the adoption of measures capable of breaking the network established among them.”

With 12 arrest warrants and on the run since 2018, Zinho surrendered to the Federal Police in December last year. He occupied the position left by his brother, Wellington da Silva Braga. The militiaman, known as Ecko, was one of those responsible for expanding the group's domains. He was killed by police on June 12, 2021, in the community of Três Pontes, in Paciência, one of the group's strongholds of power.

Days before Zinho's arrest, the militia had been the target of Federal Police operations. One of them against deputy Lucia Helena Pinto de Barros, known as Lucinha (PSD), who was appointed as “godmother” by the militia members and would act as a lobbyist in favor of actions against the gang. The court ordered her removal from office.