The jailed leader of São Paulo’s fiercest gang, which launched an offensive that has claimed more than 150 lives in less than a week, warned on Thursday that the violence would get worse.
”We are ready for much more, we have the means for much more,” Marcos Camacho said in an interview broadcast on local television Bandeirantes.
Taking responsibility for the explosive wave of assaults on police stations, police, banks and public transport, launched over a transfer of 756 prisoners, the leader of the Capital First Command gang, better known by its Portuguese initials PCC, said he sought a ”way to settle the situation”.
But, he said, authorities ”do not want to. They have declared war.”
The Bandeirantes television reporter said the interview was conducted by cellphone with Camacho, who is held at a high-security prison.
Some analysts say Brazilian state governments are relentlessly keen to keep federal troops out of their crises, even severe ones.
”States do anything to avoid federal intervention because it would make them look weak and hurt them politically,” said Sergio Adorno of the Violence Research Group.
Ten more people reportedly were killed early on Thursday as authorities scrambled to crush violence, which has plagued the south-eastern state of São Paulo for almost a week. The latest bloodshed came after the overall death toll climbed past 150 on Wednesday.
The 10 latest deaths reportedly occurred early on Thursday in clashes between suspected criminals and police.
Eight buses were also torched overnight and gunshots were heard in some city neighbourhoods as police helicopters clattered overhead.
Bus service in São Paulo, however, was expected to be operating on Thursday.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday it appeared that order had been restored but that the state of São Paulo had refused offers of help from the federal government.
The government offered assistance to the governor of São Paulo, Claudio Lembo, but ”he said kindly that he didn’t need it”, Lula said.
The PCC unleashed the violence last Friday after several hundred of its members, including Camacho, also known as ”Marcola”, were moved from various jails into the top-security prison.
Police believed PCC leaders were controlling the violence from their cells using portable phones and ordered transmitting towers near prisons closed down.
The PCC is the largest criminal gang in São Paulo state and has a massive base in prisons.
The gang first emerged in prisons in the 1990s and was responsible for uprisings in 20 prisons in February 2001. In November 2003, it launched attacks on security forces that left 11 officers and seven gang members dead. — AFP
