Brazilian police launch massive raid on Amazon drug cartel

Brazilian police on Friday launched a massive raid on an international drug cartel accused of killing dozens of people and setting up a "parallel state" in the Amazon region.

Some 700 officers deployed across five northern states with more than 100 arrest warrants, including ones for a town councillor and seven lawyers accused of working with the cartel, police said in a statement.

The authorities also have Interpol arrest notices targeting suspects in Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia and Peru. Charges include drug and arms trafficking, murder, kidnapping and money laundering.

Police said the investigation was prompted in April 2014 near the triple border between Brazil, Colombia and Peru when federal police stopped a riverboat transporting US$54,000 stashed in an air conditioning unit.

They said the money trail led them to a massive, previously unknown drug cartel operating in the region.

Authorities said the cartel had a similar structure to the Cali cartel in Colombia, one of the most powerful drug trafficking operations of the 1980s and 90s.