![\"A](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/CA5B\/production\/_99430815_95a60485-f1fc-464a-96fb-9582d8a535d9.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPolice in Brazil have arrested a drug lord accused of ordering a deadly prison riot on New Year’s Day.<\/p>\n
Nine inmates were killed and 14 injured during the unrest at a prison in the central state of Goias.<\/p>\n
Stephan de Souza Vieira, 34, was seized at a luxury flat in the state of Rio de Janeiro. He had been on the run from the jail since November.<\/p>\n
He is a leader of the Red Command criminal gang with drug interests across Brazil, police say.<\/p>\n
Vieira, also known as BH, had been serving a 26-year sentence for drug trafficking when he escaped from the Aparecida de Goiania jail.<\/p>\n
Police say that he controlled gang inmates from outside the prison and gave orders for armed members to start the riot.<\/p>\n
They attacked a rival gang in a separate wing of the prison and set mattresses on fire.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
More than 100 inmates escaped during the riot. Dozens remain at large.<\/p>\n
Vieira was arrested in a flat in the seaside resort of Cabo Frio.<\/p>\n
He was found with a substantial amount of cash, jewellery, several mobile phones and notebooks with details of drug trafficking transactions.<\/p>\n
Riots are common in Brazilian prisons, which are notoriously overcrowded.<\/p>\n
Brazil has one of the largest prison populations in the world. The country’s jails are largely controlled by powerful criminal factions with access to drugs, mobile phones and weapons.<\/p>\n
A report by judicial authorities in 2016 described security at the rural penitentiary on the outskirts of the state capital, Goiania, as bad.<\/p>\n
According to the report, the prison – part of a larger complex – was built to house 122 inmates, but at one point it held 423.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n
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Police in Brazil have arrested a drug lord accused of ordering a deadly prison riot on New Year’s Day. Nine inmates were killed and 14 injured during the unrest at a prison in the central state of Goias. Stephan de Souza Vieira, 34, was seized at a luxury flat in the state of Rio de […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":389578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[2901,15941,15940],"class_list":["post-389577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-brazil","tag-cabo-frio","tag-stephan-de-souza-vieira"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=389577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/389578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=389577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=389577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=389577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}