{{One of Brazil’s largest criminal gangs has threatened to unleash a wave of terrorist attacks during next year’s FIFA World Cup and presidential elections if authorities transfer jailed bosses to a solitary confinement unit in the state of Sao Paulo, according to a Brazilian daily.}}
The First Command of the Capital gang, better known in Brazil by the Portuguese acronym PCC, also plan to organise prison strikes and target police officers, according to mobile telephone conversations intercepted by intelligence units and leaked to the Estado de Sao Paulo daily.
The threat to spread fear during next year’s international football tournament comes a week after an extensive report by prosecutors on the PCC’s activities was revealed by the same newspaper. The report confirmed that the gang’s leaders continued to run crime operations from inside prisons via mobile phones.
The PCC’s “World Cup of Terror” warning came after Brazil’s press reported that cartel bosses would be moved to the maximum security Presidente Bernardes Prison, located near Sao Paulo’s isolated western border, and that new equipment blocking mobile telephone signals would be installed at penitentiaries.
The state’s top cop, Benedito Roberto Meira, said he had ordered his troops to be on high alert. Over 100 state police officers were murdered in 2012 after the PCC ordered attacks on security forces.
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