In Brazil’s flooded south, a secret mission to recover thousands of guns from an airport

By GABRIELA SÁ PESSOA
Associated Press

SAO PAULO (AP) — A group of volunteers working to save people from the floods in southern Brazil have claimed they were misled into participating in an operation to remove several thousand firearms from the airport of Rio Grande do Sul state’s capital Porto Alegre. Nicolas Vedovatto, a 26-year-old investor, told The Associated Press that he and three others found out through a WhatsApp group created to muster volunteers that help was needed to save children stranded at the flooded airport. They offered their support, then met a woman just before the planned operation. She informed them that she actually worked for Brazil’s largest gun manufacturer, Taurus Armas, and they would in fact be rescuing rifles and pistols.