Seven people were killed and two others were arrested on Wednesday during a police operation in the Brazilian state of Cerzipe (northeast) to dismantle a criminal organization that allegedly committed murders, robberies and drug trafficking, local authorities said.

About a hundred police officers took part in this wide-scale operation in Christinapolis, a city of 17,000 inhabitants 120 kilometers from Aracazu, the capital of Serzipi state.

Seven suspects, who were being “investigated for ties to a criminal organization,” were killed in clashes with law enforcement, local police said in a press release, also citing two arrests and 23 raids, one of which took place in prison.

The operation was launched after an anonymous tip that the prisoner was the leader of a criminal organization that was spreading terror in a town neighboring Christinapolis, in the southern sector of Sergipe, near the state of Bahia.

Brazilian police are often criticized by human rights groups for their violence, especially against Afro-Brazilians.

In 2022, 175 people were killed in police operations in Cerzipe, a small state home to 2.2 million Brazilians. The neighboring state of Bahia, which is much larger and has a much larger population (15 million inhabitants), had the most deaths in police operations last year (1,464).