SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazil’s federal police said on Tuesday they were carrying out new raids as part of a probe into the Jan. 8 riots in Brasilia, in which supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings.
They were serving eight preventive arrest warrants and 13 search and seizure warrants ordered by the Supreme Court in five states, a statement said.
The raids represent the sixth phase of an operation launched last month aimed at identifying people who participated in, funded or fostered the riots, in which a mob invaded and ransacked the Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court.
In the previous phase, carried out last week, they arrested the military police officer who led security operations in the capital on Jan. 8 on suspicion of omissions in security planning, according to sources.
Police did not disclose the names of those targeted in Tuesday’s raids, but said they were being investigated for crimes of “violent abolition of the rule of law, coup d’état, qualified damage, criminal association, incitement, destruction and deterioration of specially protected property”.
(Reporting by Gabriel Araujo, editing by Ed Osmond)
