While Lady Gaga sang in front of more than two million people, police thwarted a terrorist attack

AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS

Brazilian police announced that they had thwarted a bomb attack planned for Lady Gaga's concert, which attracted more than two million people on Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday.

Rio de Janeiro state police, in cooperation with the justice ministry, reported that the plot was organized by a group that propagates hate speech and works to radicalize teenagers, inciting violent content as a form of social belonging.

According to Rio's city hall, 2.1 million people attended the American pop star's concert.

"The suspects recruited participants, including minors, for coordinated attacks using improvised explosive devices and Molotov cocktails," the police said.

The justice ministry said that the organizers of the attack presented themselves as members of Gaga's global fan base, known as "little monsters."

The police carried out the operation based on a report from the ministry's cyber operations laboratory, and following a tip-off from the Rio state police intelligence service that discovered digital cells inciting violent behavior among teenagers using coded language and extremist symbolism.

A man described as the leader of the organization was arrested in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul for illegal possession of firearms, while a teenager in Rio was detained after child pornography was found on his computer.

Authorities executed more than a dozen search and seizure warrants in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo.