Civil police officers from the DRACO organised-crime unit in Santana do Livramento, Rio Grande do Sul, arrested a 57-year-old man while serving a search warrant in the municipality.[1] The operation was carried out with the team from Operação Protetor de Divisas e Fronteiras, a federal border-protection programme run by the Ministry of Justice and Public Security from its Rosário do Sul base.[1]

The search took place on a rural property of more than 15 hectares, where officers seized more than two kilograms of marijuana, a precision scale and a mobile phone.[1]

A regional court in Uruguaiana, the Vara Regional de Garantias, authorised the search after a police request.[1] The investigation began with information from the police in Rivera, Uruguay, about possible drugs and weapons being kept on the property, and DRACO officers carried out checks that supported the warrant request.[1]

The arrested man is Uruguayan and has a record in that country for drug trafficking, handling stolen goods, homicide and firearms offences, including a conviction for aggravated trafficking in an organised criminal group.[1] Police identified the man as the person in charge of the property and a suspected subordinate of a leader of the Os Manos faction in the border region, who is being held in a Rio Grande do Sul prison.[1] The action stemmed from cooperation between the Brazilian and Uruguayan police forces and from the units that patrol the border.[1]

Sentinela 24H published the same account of the arrest on the same day, giving the DRACO unit’s full name as the Delegacia de Repressão às Ações Criminosas Organizadas de Sant’Ana do Livramento.[2]