Brazilian police arrested two people over an alleged plot to bomb Lady Gaga’s concert at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday.
The planned attack was foiled during a joint operation between Rio de Janeiro’s civil police and the justice ministry, officials said on Sunday.
Authorities believe the group behind the plot had been spreading hate speech against the LGBTQ community and was trying to radicalise teenagers online to carry out attacks with Molotov cocktails and homemade explosives.
“The plan was treated as a ‘collective challenge’ with the aim of gaining notoriety on social media,” police said, adding that the operation was kept quiet to avoid panic or misinformation.
The operation, codenamed “Fake Monster” — a play on Lady Gaga’s fanbase known as “Little Monsters” — led to the arrest of an adult in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul on illegal weapons charges. A teenager in Rio was also detained on charges of possessing child pornography.
Police carried out raids in the states of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, and Mato Grosso, searching the homes of 15 suspects. Phones and electronic devices were seized during the coordinated crackdown.
The justice ministry said members of the group had pretended online to be fans of Lady Gaga in order to lure teenagers into “networks with violent and self-destructive content.
Despite the foiled attack, the concert went ahead without disruption. Security was tight, with around 5,000 officers, facial recognition cameras, drones, and surveillance systems deployed at the venue.
