Following a spree of arrests of allegedly corrupt officers operating within the Rio police, Mr Allan Turnowski – the chief of police – announced yesterday he was resigning from his current position.
One of those arrested in Friday’s operation was Turnowski’s former second-in-command, Carlos Oliveira, who is accused of taking bribes from drug gangs in exchange for information. The scandal took a new twist at the weekend when Turnowski ordered a raid on the Rio offices of the state’s anti-organized crime police, which took part in Friday’s operation. He said he was acting on information that its chief, Claudio Ferraz, was involved in fraud.
Rio police have long been accused of corruption and of covering up violent tactics in the city’s hundreds of slum areas that are often controlled by drug traffickers.Hundreds of officers took part in last week’s operation, code-named Guillotine, seeking the arrest of 45 people, including 32 police officers. The investigation began in 2009 when a planned police operation in a slum had to be aborted after details of the raid were leaked to drug traffickers, officials said.
Source: Reuters, excerpt from Rio police chief quits amid corruption scandal, February 16, 2011
