Brazilian police thwart bomb plot at Lady Gaga’s Rio concert, arrest two

Brazilian police announced on Sunday that they had successfully disrupted a planned bomb attack targeting Lady Gaga’s massive concert in Rio de Janeiro, which drew an estimated two million attendees.

Rio’s civil police force stated that “together with the ministry of justice,” it had “prevented a bomb attack that would have occurred at Lady Gaga’s concert in Copacabana” on Saturday night.

Officials reported that the superstar’s free performance on the beach attracted up to two million people.

In a post on X, Rio police revealed that they had arrested an adult who was “responsible for the plot” and a teenager during the operation, which was codenamed “Fake Monster” – a reference to Lady Gaga’s affectionate term for her fans, “Little Monsters.”

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The police indicated that the individuals involved had been recruiting people online to “carry out attacks using improvised explosives,” with the intent of “gaining notoriety on social media.”

The operation involved raids conducted across Rio de Janeiro state, as well as in the states of Sao Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, and Mato Grosso.

Lady Gaga’s concert marked the second time in a year that Copacabana beach hosted a multi-million-strong audience for a musical performance, following a similarly large concert by Madonna the previous year.

Security measures for Saturday’s show were exceptionally stringent, with the deployment of approximately 5,000 officers, drones, and both surveillance and facial recognition cameras.

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