Exclusive: Rifles made in clandestine factories in São Paulo and Minas Gerais supply the Comando Vermelho in Rio.

However, the investigation reveals a new and sophisticated source of weapons: a network of clandestine factories in Minas Gerais and São Paulo , which supplies the arsenal of Comando Vermelho . Previously unseen images obtained by Fantástico show how this complex network operated.

According to the Federal Police, at least once a month, Rafael Xavier do Nascimento transported rifles from São Paulo to the Alemão complex, communities in the northern zone of Rio, and militia-controlled areas. He was caught red-handed with 13 rifles on the Via Dutra highway.

The investigation by the Federal Police 's drug enforcement division also found a series of messages exchanged on Rafael's phone with the recipient of the weapons of war.

The weapons were produced in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste , in the interior of São Paulo state. The factory used at least 11 pieces of precision industrial equipment, such as lathes and milling machines. At the site, the Federal Police seized approximately 150 finished rifles, in addition to more than 30,000 parts. The assembly line has the capacity to manufacture up to 3,500 rifles per year.

" He manufactured the rifle from scratch. It was a professional industrial plant. It wasn't a garage factory... These were high-precision pieces of equipment that cost millions of reais," explains police chief Samuel Escobar.

In the images released by the Federal Police, Anderson Custódio Gomes, from the gang's operational core, also appears. He and an accomplice were caught red-handed transporting enough parts to produce 80 rifles. They had left the factory and were headed to the gang's warehouse in the city of Americana, also in São Paulo.

The front for the crime was the CNPJ (Brazilian tax ID) of an aircraft parts factory. The property belongs to airplane pilot Gabriel Carvalho Belchior. In 2015, he made headlines when the aircraft he was piloting crashed into the sea off Leblon Beach in Rio de Janeiro.

Before the Federal Police operation at the beginning of last month, Gabriel had already left the country. In a voice message sent to a relative, he says he is in the United States.

According to the Federal Police, Gabriel sent disassembled rifles to Brazil inside boxes containing inflatable swimming pools and other merchandise. Everything was purchased in the United States and delivered to a house he had rented in Florida, from where it was shipped to Brazil.

In August, the Federal Revenue Service intercepted the shipment. Gabriel is a fugitive, and his name has been added to Interpol's wanted list. The model of this rifle sent to Brazil is different from the one produced in the clandestine factory in the interior of São Paulo.

"The main suspect in Rio de Janeiro received these rifles and sold them to the criminal faction here in Rio de Janeiro," explains Detective Samuel Escobar.

He is Silas Diniz Carvalho, arrested in 2023 after being caught with 47 rifles in his apartment in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro. The Federal Police discovered that he operated another factory in Belo Horizonte. Silas's wife, Marcely Ávila Machado, also participates in the production process.

"It looked like a normal, ordinary factory, a furniture factory, a window and door factory, but inside the factory, in the interior, the entire illicit operation was taking place," says the police chief.

Investigators estimate that this clandestine arms industry supplied around a thousand rifles to factions in Rio, not only in the Complexo do Alemão, but also in Rocinha and Complexo da Maré, and to militias. The gang also supplied weapons to factions in Bahia and Ceará.

The Rio Civil Police will still conduct an expert analysis on the more than 90 rifles seized in the mega-operation against Comando Vermelho. At least 25 were like this one: AR-15 platform, 556 caliber, exactly like those manufactured in Santa Bárbara do Oeste.

The Sou da Paz Institute indicates that the number of rifles seized in Rio increased by 32% between 2019 and 2023.

The Fantástico production team was unable to contact the defense attorneys for Silas Diniz Carvalho and Anderson Custódio Gomes, who are in prison, and could not locate Marcely Ávila Machado and Gabriel Carvalho Belchior, who is a fugitive.