Police on Friday arrested 28 members of a major criminal gang that has terrorized the city of Sao Paulo in recent months just as it prepared to rob two banks in southern Brazil by digging a tunnel, according to Reuters. The suspects were all members of the gang called First Command of the Capital, or PCC from its Portuguese initials, police said. Almost 200 people have died in Sao Paulo since May in three separate waves of attacks by the PCC on police stations, banks, and government buildings. The gang is also tied to Brazil's biggest-ever bank robbery in 2005. At the time of the arrests in downtown Porto Alegre, 22 people were digging an 88-yard (80-metre)-long tunnel into the safes of two banks. "This was a very strong setback for them because they were caught with what they value the most, the goal of their crime, which is money," Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos said, according to Agencia Estado local news agency. Law enforcement officials seized tunneling equipment and 20,500 reais ($9,579), the Federal Police said in a statement. Police arrested four other people as part of its "Operation Mole Faction," including Antonio Carlos da Silva and Lucivaldo Laurindo, members of the PCC the police said were tied to the $70 million heist at a central bank building in Ceara state in 2005. One person in Sao Paulo and another in northern Piaui state were also arrested as part of the operation.
