Foreign-made guns in Brazil slum raid

Violent crimes carried out by heavily-armed gangs are a staple of Rio de Janeiro’s international image and authorities here often blame foreign countries for importing the guns. A detailed report on a recent weapons seizure released today seems to bear out this claim. The newspaper O Globo reports that last year's Thanksgiving weekend raid on two of Rio’s biggest slums, Complexo do Alemao and Vila Cruzeiro, led to the seizure of almost 300 weapons. Of those, the report says, more than 70 percent were foreign-made. Interestingly, a total of ten weapons taken from the hands of criminals that day were originally owned by the Brazilian military or police.