Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva inaugurated an ambitious 11 billion reais ($2 billion) public security program on Tuesday, a sweeping initiative that allows for the purchase of drones, body scanners, metal detectors, and other surveillance equipment to crack down on the country’s two most powerful organized crime syndicates: the First Command of the Capital (PCC) and the Red Command (CV). The launch, held at the presidential palace in Brasília, is widely seen as a move to strengthen Lula’s public safety record as he prepares to run for a fourth term in October’s general election, an arena where political rivals have consistently attacked him as insufficiently tough on crime.
The program, which the government said will spend roughly 1 billion reais ($190 million) before the end of the year, also funds operations to disrupt arms trafficking, target the financial networks of criminal organizations, improve the quality of homicide investigations, and modernize the prison system. The list of approved equipment extends beyond surveillance tools to include radar systems, DNA tracking devices, and cellphone signal blockers.
During the launch, Lula referenced a meeting last week with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, where he discussed joint efforts against transnational crime. “I told him we had proposals on financial asphyxiation (of crime gangs), fighting money laundering. Some of the weapons (used in Brazil) come from the United States,” Lula said. He added that Trump would be welcome to participate “in agreement with what are decisions of Brazil’s government and Brazil’s police.”
Lula did not directly address the criticism that has long trailed his Workers’ Party from figures such as Senator Flávio Bolsonaro and former Goiás Governor Ronaldo Caiado, both of whom have campaigned on hardline security platforms and claim the left is soft on crime. Instead, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin used the event to fire back at former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is backing his own son as a presidential candidate. “The only security policy in the previous presidency was to distribute weapons, allow weapons,” Alckmin said. “And those end up with criminals, with organized crime. It is police who should be able to bear arms.”
Lula, who is seeking a fourth term after having previously governed from 2003 to 2010, enters the campaign season with an economy showing signs of strain and persistent attacks from the right over public safety. The new program, with its concrete equipment purchases and focus on finances, is designed to project a decisive law-enforcement posture even as opposition governors, who command local police forces, have shown reluctance to embrace the federal funds.