30 years of the PCC: how the powerful criminal gang infiltrated all of Brazil and forged dangerous alliances around the worldThe First Capital Command has become a multinational drug trade capable of handling tons of drugs every month, from cocaine and marijuana to crack and, more recently, fentanyl. Links with the neo-Pentecostal universe
By
Maria Zuppello
Sep 02, 2023
Prisons in Brazil are overcrowded with members of the PCC
A multinational crime syndicate that now bills billions of dollars a year. Thirty years after its founding - on August 31, 1993 - the First Capital Command (PCC) is no longer just the main criminal group in Brazil , but a drug cartel bent on conquering the world, capable of allying with such powerful mafias as the Italian.
Born in 1993 after a soccer game in a prison in the state of São Paulo with the declared objective of "fighting against oppression within the São Paulo prison system", today the PCC is present in at least 26 countries, in the United States and in Europe. . With its new leader, Marcos Herbas Camacho, alias “Marcola” it has become a multinational drug trade capable of handling tons of drugs every month, from cocaine and marijuana to crack and, more recently, fentanyl . Starting with a profit of one million dollars a year in 2005, today the PCC, thanks to the almost businesslike approach of its leader “Marcola”, has diversified its criminal activities.It produces illegal cigarettes, blows up gas stations and carries out sensational heists, called “cangaços”, which use drones, explosives and Kalashnikovs to lay siege to small towns and their banks at night . With 1,545 members , the PCC has managed to infiltrate all levels of Brazilian society, from politics to justice. Recently, the Court of São Paulo had to keep a special eye on a competition for judges due to the risk of criminal infiltration. In the last three contests, in fact, several candidates were excluded because they were suspected of having ties to the PCC.
However, thanks also to the help of complacent magistrates, there are many PCC leaders who have managed to disappear, as is the case of Rogério Jeremias de Simone, alias Gegê do Mangue , who probably took refuge first in Paraguay and then in Bolivia, a country which became the first supplier of cocaine in Brazil (54%) followed by Peru (38%). Other leaders, such as Gilberto Aparecido dos Santos, known as Fuminho,they have been detained in seemingly unthinkable places on the planet, such as Mozambique, one of the African countries where the PCC has a logistics base. Cocaine leaves Brazil in the most absurd ways, by boat, and also through professional divers, often foreigners, who are capable of placing it on the keels without the crew knowing, or by air. Recently, the arrest in Germany of two unsuspecting Brazilian tourists whose luggage had been exchanged for suitcases full of cocaine revealed that the domestic departures terminal of the main airport in Latin America, Guarulhos-São Paulo, was being used by the PCC to transport cocaine. to Europe. There were numerous escape attempts by their leaders, some of whom were serving sentences of up to 100 years, like Marcola and his brother Alejandro Herbas Camacho, alias “Marcolinha”. In one of them, among the hired men were supposedly highly trained African soldiers. Fortunately, until now all the attempts have been frustrated, as well as the purpose of kidnapping the former judge symbol of the Lava Jato anti-corruption operation, Sérgio Moro, during the 2022 elections.
Some of the members of the PCC, First Capital Command
The baptism of fire that marked the turning point for the PCC to impose itself on the international scene was the assassination of the Lebanese-born drug trafficker Jorge Rafaat Toumani in 2016. With his death, the PCC took control of the entire transport route. cocaine, from Andean plantations, especially in Bolivia, to Brazilian ports such as Santos, on the coast of São Paulo, from where the drug is shipped, especially to Europe, thanks to excellent relations with the powerful Italian 'ndrangheta mafia. The PCC now even owns entire marijuana plantations in Paraguay.Toumani was the undisputed drug lord on the border between Brazil and Paraguay, especially between Ponta Porã and Pedro Juan Caballero. He knew he was in the crosshairs of the PCC and therefore was escorted by heavily armed Eastern European mercenaries, but that did not stop him from being riddled with bullets, a staged ambush that has gone down in Brazilian history.
Since Toumani's death, the CCP has grown exponentially, even negotiating weapons of war with Pakistan, through the 'ndrangheta.The PCC, which in the past had difficulties laundering the proceeds of drug trafficking, now invests in the private universities of Santa Cruz in Bolivia, in beauty and dental clinics in São Paulo, and in evangelical churches. In February of this year, according to the Public Ministry of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, a prominent member of the criminal organization, Valdeci Alves dos Santos, 51, alias "Colorido", was accused of laundering 23 million reais, 4 65 million dollars, to open seven neo-Pentecostal churches and buy real estate. And if other mafias, like the Italian Cosa Nostra and 'ndrangheta in the archaic root of their identity, have always used the symbols of Catholicism for initiation ceremonies or important sanctuaries, like that of the “Madonna di Polsi” in Calabria to combine devotion with meetings between criminals, in Brazil the phenomenon is completely different. And it is above all the world of neo-Pentecostals that has attracted organized crime.
The new book by the researcher from the University of São Paulo Bruno Paes Manso , entitled "Faith and the gun: crime and religion in Brazil in the 21st century" starts from an essential question: How has crime in Brazil changed with growth? of evangelical churches since the 1990s? And how then did the conservative values ??associated with the evangelical universe become central in Brazilian politics, especially under former President Jair Bolsonaro?
“Religion and crime are different worlds, although they have similar origins in Brazilian cities. They were born and spread in poor neighborhoods, as solutions created by these populations to get out of poverty in a country where money can make the difference between life and death” Paes Manso explains to Infobae. “With the professionalization of crime and the entry of illegal money into the formal world and the economy through money laundering, the dialogue between these worlds has become closer based on a common ideology that values ??wealth and the capacity to consume. as the purpose of life,” he added.
From an anthropological point of view, the churches and the PCC are some of the networks among the many that exist in the peripheries. These networks not only exist in overlap, but also interpenetrate and create dynamic zones of social exchange. This perhaps explains why, after the 40-year cycle of violence that brought the city of São Paulo to a rate of 35 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 1999, the curve reversed overnight in the 2000s. Gun control, the arrest of murderers and the closure of bars were initially the reasons why the homicide rate fell to 4.4 in 2022. But by themselves they are not enough to explain the investment, in which there may be influenced the evangelical universe.
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Brazilian drug trafficker Marcos Camacho, also known as 'Marcola', leaves a hospital in Brasilia, Brazil, January 21, 2020 (REUTERS)
As for Rio de Janeiro , the situation is different, not only because the territory is controlled by other criminal groups such as the Comando Vermelho , but also because it has witnessed the unique phenomenon of evangelical drug traffickers. "They are those of the so-called Complexo de Israel - a name given to favelas such as Vigário Geral, Parada de Lucas and other neighborhoods - who use religion to try to legitimize their authority," Bruno Paes Manso explains to Infobae. Part of the leadership of the faction of the Third Pure Command (TCP) has converted to the neo-Pentecostal world. Among them is the main leader, Álvaro Malaquias Santa Rosa, alias “Arão” or “Peixão”, who refers to his soldiers as the Army of the Living God. Civilian police investigations suggest that the drug trafficker was also ordained pastor of an evangelical church. Peixão is known for using many symbols associated with Israel. He has imposed Israeli flags on the territory he controls and, in one of his bunkers, police discovered bulletproof vests, ammunition and a copy of the Torah. This symbolism should not surprise you. For some currents of neo-Pentecostal churches, the creation of Israel was a sign of the return of Jesus Christ and, therefore, the confirmation of the Biblical promises of the Old Testament. Suffice it to say that the founder of one of the main neo-Pentecostal churches in Brazil, Edir Macedo,
Bruno Paes Manso explains to Infobae that “the position of these criminal groups reveals a deeper problem that has affected Brazilian politics. In the struggle for power, in a world where the old ideologies have collapsed, religion has been used in the public sphere to produce power and justify a war of good against evil. Hence hyper-conservative slogans such as "God, Country and Family" that have opened the door to incredible alliances in Brazilian politics, even with international extremism, such as that of Steve Bannon, former right-hand man of former US President Donald Trump.
https://www.infobae.com/america/ame...vinculos-con-el-universo-neopentecostal/