Rio de Janeiro, January 12 (RHC-NNN) -– Six suspected drug traffickers were killed in a shootout with police in a “favela,” or shantytown, in Niteroi, a city outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian police said Sunday.

Police launched an operation Saturday in the Comunidade do Ceu shantytown, where the leaders of a drug gang were meeting.

Officers were met with gunfire when they entered the shantytown, where they seized firearms and drugs. Anderson do Nascimento da Silva, the No. 2 leader of the gang that operates in the Complexo do Alemão, one of the largest shantytowns in Rio de Janeiro, was among those killed.

Denis Gomes Portugual, a suspect in the August 2014 murder of police Sgt. Joilson da Silva Gomes, is among the seven people arrested in the operation.