The Brazilian police reported Sunday that arrested two people in relation to an alleged plot to detonate a bomb in a free concert by Lady Gaga in Rio de Janeiro.
The event in Rio on Saturday was the biggest show of the Pop Star race, which attracted about two million fans to Copacabana Beach.
The state Police of Rio de Janeiro and the Ministry of Justice of Brazil presented the basic details of a plot that, they indicated, involved a group that promoted hate speeches against the LGBTQ+community, among others, and planned to detonate homemade explosive devices in the event.
“The plan was like a ‘collective challenge’ with the aim of gaining notoriety in social networks,” police said. The group, he added, spread violent content to adolescents online as “a form of belonging.”
The authorities arrested two people in relation to the alleged plot: a man described as the leader of the group in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul for positions of illegal possession of weapons, and a teenager in Rio for charges of child pornography. Police did not detail their exact roles at the plot or how the group intended to attack the concert.
“Those involved were recruiting participants, including adolescents, to carry out integrated attacks using improvised explosives and Molotov cocktails,” police said.
The Ministry of Justice said the group represented a “risk for public order” and was falsely presented online as “Little Monsters”, Lady Gaga’s nickname for its fans, in order to reach adolescents and attract them to “networks with violent and self -destructive content.”
During a series of raids in the houses of 15 suspects in several states of Brazil, the authorities confiscated telephones and other electronic devices. Although the police said that the attack involved homemade bombs, in the information about the raids no weapons or explosive material were mentioned.
Lady Gaga’s publicists and concert promoters did not immediately respond to a comment request.
Police declared that he carried out the operation discreetly on Saturday “avoiding panic or distortion of information among the population.” The Ministry assured that attendees to the free concert were not affected.
