Anti-crime Operations
As the road is the main method of transport for merchandise, valuables, and people in Brazil, the PRF specializes in an innumerable amount of anti-crime activities, many times specific to the peculiarities of the region. In border regions, emphasis is given to fighting against contraband and drug trafficking (with the aid of police dogs); the North Region is characterized by repression of environmental crimes, such as the extraction and transport of natural resources prohibited by law; and in the Northeast Region the PRF concentrates on fighting against marijuana trafficking and trafficking of minors.
All over the country, the PRF carries out searches for fugitives and criminals wanted who may be traveling on federal highways, recovery of stolen vehicles, as well as specific operations against the robbery of vehicles with valuable cargo and passenger buses.
Following their crime fighting vocation, the PRF now not only restricts itself to crimes on federal highways. Recently a series of operations - some of which were carried out in conjunction with other federal agencies - reinforce the new position of the agency, acting ostensibly as a federal police force: Operação Carta Branca (against fraud in the issuing of licenses), Operação Paracelso (against the fuel mafia), Operação Seringueira, Operação Velozes e Furiosos, etc. Hundreds of search and arrest warrants were carried out all over the country.
Read more about this topic: Federal Highway Police
Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)