Brazil: Lula deploys troops to ports and airports in organised crime crackdown

Military intervention to last until May and is reportedly designed to cut off key drug and gun smuggling routes

Thousands of troops have taken up position in the ports and airports of Rio and São Paulo and along Brazil’s western border as part of efforts to “asphyxiate” organized crime amid an upsurge in bloodshed and violence.

The military intervention – ordered last Friday by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – will last until next May and is reportedly designed to cut off the drug and gun smuggling routes on which trafficking and mafia groups depend.