Brasilia (Reuters) – Brazilian police announced on Sunday that they have foiled a bomb attack project targeting the Lady Gaga concert in Rio de Janeiro, which attracted more than 2 million people the day before the Copacabana beach.
Civil police from the State of Rio de Janeiro, in coordination with the Ministry of Justice, said that the attack project had been orchestrated by a group encouraging hate speeches and the radicalization of adolescents, including self -control and violent content.
According to the Town Hall of Rio, 2.1 million people attended the concert of the American pop icon.
“The suspects recruited participants, including minors, to carry out coordinated attacks using improvised explosives and Molotov cocktails,” police said in a statement.
According to the Ministry of Justice, recruiters had identified themselves as members of the world base of Lady Gaga, known as “Little Monsters”.
The operation was carried out on the basis of a report from the cyberial laboratory of the ministry following information from the intelligence services of the Police of the State of Rio, which discovered a group encouraging violent behavior among adolescents by using a coded language and extremist symbols.
A man described as the leader of the group was arrested in the state of Rio Grande Do Sul for illegal possession of a firearm, while a teenager from Rio de Janeiro was placed in detention for storage of pedopornography.
The authorities have made more than a dozen searches and seizures in the States of Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grosso, Rio Grande Do Sul and Sao Paulo.
(Report Marcela Ayres, French version Benjamin Mallet)
