Brazilian police killed 12 alleged robbers in a shootout early today while intercepting a gang on their way to a Sao Paulo state airport to hold up a plane loaded with cash, a state official said.
The gunbattle took place at a highway toll station some 100 km south of Sao Paulo where police hit the convoy of a bus and three cars carrying 20 to 25 bandits, the spokesman for Sao Paulo Secretary of Public Justice said.
The police arrested five of the gang, he said. None of the 80 police who took part in the operation was shot.
Police were given an anonymous tip last week that a gang from the First Command of the Capital - one of Brazil's fiercest criminal factions - planned to hold up the plane carrying cash for bank branches.
The heist would have been the latest in a string of crimes focusing on cities in the interior of Sao Paulo state, Brazil's richest and most populous.
A Globo television report said three of the suspects escaped in a car.