Sao Paulo security chief resigns amid wave of violence

SAO PAULO (AFP) - The chief of security for Sao Paulo, Brazil's economic capital, resigned on Wednesday amid a wave of violence linked to a conflict between a prison gang and the state's military police force.

Antonio Ferreira Pinto was replaced as the state's security secretary by a former attorney general, Fernando Grella Vieira, who told the G1 news website on Wednesday that a strategy revamp was in order.

"This wave of violence is a big problem. A lot of work and effort will be needed to turn around the situation," Mr Grella Vieira said.

About 300 people are reported to have been killed since October, about a third of them members of the state's military police force, in violence linked to a reported vendetta by a prison-based gang known as the PCC, or First Commando of the Capital.