Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro Civil Police revealed Sunday that it thwarted a bomb attack planned against American pop star Lady Gaga’s free weekend concert on Copacabana Beach.
More than 2 million people attended Lady Gaga’s concert, which is now reportedly described as the artist’s largest show of her career, vastly exceeding the 1.6 million turnout initially expected.
Rio’s police said Sunday it launched “Operation Fake Monster” in response to bomb threats issued against the concert with a focus on “children, adolescents and the LGBTQIA+ public.” The bomb threats, police explained, prompted an investigation in the law enforcement agency together with the Brazilian judiciary, which found those allegedly involved in the plot were “recruiting participants, including teenagers, to promote attacks using improvised explosives, such as Molotov cocktails.”
The investigation also led to the arrest of a man in Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul, for illegally carrying a firearm, and a teenager in Rio de Janeiro for storing child pornography.
“The agents carried out search and seizure warrants against targets in Rio, Niterói, Duque de Caxias and Macaé; as well as in the states of São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul and Mato Grosso. The local Civil Police collaborated,” Rio’s police reported.
The police were first made aware of the bomb threat through an anonymous call on 181 hotline on April 28. CNN Brasil reported that it obtained access to the anonymous call, which warned law enforcement that “a virtual criminal group known as Levast, which operates on the Discord platform” was “planning an attack on singer Lady Gaga’s concert.”
The caller reportedly denounced that the perpetrators planned to use Molotov cocktails and explosive backpacks and asserted that “even minors” would take part in the attack.
Rio’s police explained to local outlets that the criminal group treated the plot as a “collective challenge” and sought to gain notoriety on social media. Police agents tracked down a 16-year-old from the city of São Vicente in southern São Paulo who admitted to being responsible for social media profiles that disseminated hate messages.
The unidentified child confirmed that he was responsible for “profiles that published hate messages,” but denied any involvement in threats against Lady Gaga’s concert. The minor was released in the presence of his father. Law enforcement agents seized a computer, a cell phone, an external hard drive, and a video game console’s memory card device.
According to the Rio police, the targets of the operations “operated on digital platforms, promoting the radicalization of adolescents, the dissemination of hate crimes, self-mutilation, pedophilia and violent content as a form of belonging and defiance among young people.”
The reports did not clarify who the “hate” content was targeting.
The Rio Grande do Sul Court of Justice informed the outlet Metrópoles on Sunday that Luis Fabiano da Silva, the man arrested for illegally carrying a firearm, was released after paying bail to the police but will still have to go through a custody hearing. Metrópoles explained that it had no information on the current status of the 17-year-old arrested on child pornography charges.
“We learned about this alleged threat via media reports this morning,” a Lady Gaga spokesperson told the Hollywood Reporter on Sunday. “Prior to and during the show, there were no known safety concerns, nor any communication from the police or authorities to Lady Gaga regarding any potential risks.”
“Her team worked closely with law enforcement throughout the planning and execution of the concert and all parties were confident in the safety measures in place,” the spokesperson continued.
The free concert, which marked Lady Gaga’s first return to Brazil since her 2012 tour, was organized and paid for by Rio’s local government as part of its efforts to revitalize Rio’s economy. Local authorities reportedly expected that the show would inject at least $106 million into Rio’s economy, with similar free yearly concerts scheduled every May at least until 2028.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here
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