At least one of the 12 people is a minor, according to the AP.
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Brazil’s headache with security ahead of the Rio Olympics was set to grow as a group of extremists in Brazil has apparently declared loyalty to the Islamic State (Isil).
De Moraes said the group was not an organized cell, calling it “absolutely amateur – with no preparation”. “A few days ago they said they should start practicing martial arts, for example”.
This week, Brazil’s intelligence agency said it was reviewing all threats against the Rio 2016 Games after a jihadi messaging channel called for its followers to target the Olympics.
Brazil’s intelligence agency ABIN is said to have worked with foreign counterparts to provide the information that led to the arrests, which were carried out by members of the police and armed forces mostly in the southern states of São Paulo and Parana.
“Due to the proximity of the Olympics – when we will receive many foreigners – Brazil from that point on would start to become part of the target of these people”, he said. Several were allegedly trying to secure financing from the group, known by the acronym ISIS. “If the French police can not stop attacks on its territory, training given to the Brazilian police will not do anything”, the group said on the encrypted messaging app Telegram. That email communication was intercepted by police.
On Monday, teachers protested outside the training camp for Brazil’s soccer team, showing banners to the arriving players that read “Money only for Olympics”.
In addition to terrorism, Moraes told Folha that public security and organized crime are major concerns for Rio, unlike previous Olympic cities such as London.
The government said last week that the threat of terrrorism had “reached a higher level” following the killings in Nice, France.
Officials did not raise the country’s terror alert level Thursday following the raids.
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“We did a scan on all national databases and also, in the spirit of worldwide cooperation, a trace of information with these global partners”, Andrei Augusto Passos Rodrigues, national security coordinator for Rio 2016, told magazine show Fantastico on Sunday night. Brazilian authorities have mobilized 200,000 military personnel on Saturday on a “day of action” created to raise awareness about the risks of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries the Zika virus.
