Brazil security forces have recaptured one of the world’s biggest arms traffickers, who escaped from prison in November last year.
Arms smuggler João Filipe Barbieri fled from a jail in Brazil five months back using a fake early release document, BBC reported.
He was arrested in a police operation on Wednesday in the city of Niterói, around 9 km from Rio.
Barbieri was convicted for being part of a gang that smuggled hundreds of rifles from the US hidden in swimming pool equipment.
Police found him at his mother’s house in a slum near Rio de Janeiro.
Barbieri is the stepson of the gang leader, who is known as the Lord of Weapons.
He was arrested in 2017 after a container with 60 military-style rifles it had despatched from Miami was intercepted at Rio’s international airport.
Barbieri was convicted on charges of arms trafficking and sentenced to 27 years in jail.
But in November 2020 he managed to walk out of a high-security prison in Rio after forging a court document that appeared to order his early release.