Dramatic Video Appears To Show Police In Brazil Stopping Drug Smuggling Plane With Their Car

A dramatic video that surfaced online on Thursday appears to show Brazilian federal police officers performing a daring move to head off an illegal drug-smuggling plane on a makeshift runway in southeastern Brazil.

"Go, go, go! Let me get around him and I'll close in on the plane," an officer in the speeding car says, according to a Huffington Post translation of the video.

A moment later, gunfire can be heard, but it's unclear whether it originated from the drug smugglers or from the police. The camera abruptly shifts angles, suggesting it (or the person holding it) might have been hit by bullets.

"Hit it, hit it, hit it!" an officer shouts as the car approaches the aircraft. Then, in a bold maneuver, the police car's driver rams into the plane's tail and then swerves into the side of the aircraft, forcing it to spin off course and come to a stop.

Police arrested five people and found over 230 kilograms of cocaine base paste on the plane, which was intercepted while trying to unload the drugs, according to the video's description.

This isn't the first time we've seen this: in 2011, an equally dramatic video showed Brazilian police ramming another smuggling plane, smashing their windshield in the process. But don't get the idea that the country's aggressive police tactics are always successful: a video from earlier this month appears to show Brazilian police wildly shooting up a Rio de Janeiro slum from a helicopter in an attempt to kill a notorious drug dealer.

(h/t Sage Bierster for translating the video for us.)