30 years of the PCC: how the powerful criminal gang infiltrated all of Brazil and forged dangerous alliances around the world
The 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/

Brazil’s biggest drug gang has gone global
The Economist
The First Capital Command is now a mafia with links throughout Europe

Football matches are tense affairs in Brazil. That is doubly true when they take place in prisons. In August 1993 a game in a São Paulo jail ended in horrific fashion. Eight inmates attacked their opponents, killing at least two. Covered in blood, they proclaimed the birth of a new gang: the First Capital Command (PCC). Thirty years later the PCC is Latin America’s biggest gang, with estimates suggesting it has 40,000 lifetime members and another 60,000 “contractors". That would make it one of the world’s largest crime groups. And on November 6th a leaked report by Portugal’s security services claimed the group has 1,000 associates in Lisbon, the capital. The PCC is going global.

The gang’s network of allies began in South America. A decade ago the PCC formed an association with some of the world’s biggest cocaine-traffickers. Based in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, this “super gang" is dedicated to joint ventures in drugs and money-laundering. Local media thought it sounded like Mercosur, the regional trading bloc. They named it “Narcosur". The PCC has separate relationships with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, a human-trafficking group, too.
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But in recent years, the PCC has concentrated on building ties with Europe. In 2021 a record 303 tonnes of blow were seized in the European Union (see chart). The farther it is shipped, the bigger the margins. Previously the PCC bought coke wholesale in Bolivia for $1,500 per kilogram, got it onto a ship in a Brazilian port, and sold it on for $8,000 per kilogram. By setting up a base in Europe, members can sell that kilogram for over $30,000.

Members of the PCC are thought to be present in half a dozen European countries, including Britain. The gang runs over 50% of Brazil’s drug exports to the continent, says Lincoln Gakiya, an organised-crime prosecutor from São Paulo. It mostly works with Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta, Europe’s biggest mafia. The two syndicates have partnered for years. ‘Ndrangheta brokers are regularly arrested in Brazil, where they make hefty deals. In May an investigation by Europol, the EU’s police agency, revealed that the ‘Ndrangheta was shipping the PCC guns from Pakistan. It collaborates with Albanian and Serbian drug gangs, too.

Another area the gang is expanding in is west Africa, a major transit zone for the white stuff. The PCC has become a central player pumping drugs through the region, according to a recent report by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, a Swiss-based think-tank. It is also probably behind a reverse route, where Moroccan cannabis is smuggled to Brazil.

According to Christian Azevedo, of Brazil’s federal police, in Nigeria PCC gangsters brazenly walk the streets of Lagos and Abuja. “They even control neighbourhoods there, the same way they do in São Paulo," he says, citing intelligence from his Nigerian counterparts. The Nigerian connection has helped the gang push into southern Africa, too. South Africa is a key point for sending coke to emerging markets in India and China.

Criminal clout is not merely about powerful friends or geographic range. Territorial and social control are important as well. The PCC is no slouch there. “They exert a type of control that no other group has ever exerted, except Colombia’s FARC at their apex," says Steven Dudley of InSight Crime, an investigative outlet. The gang is a parallel state in Brazil’s favelas, governing the lives of tens of millions. In the 2000s it even ordered a reduction in urban violence, converting São Paulo from one of Brazil’s most dangerous cities to one of its safest. Even so, if its interests are threatened the group will employ extreme violence, notes Mr Gakiya. In 2019 he ordered the transfer of 22 PCC leaders to maximum-security jails. As a result, the gang put him on a kill list. He now lives under police protection. When being interviewed, he warned that the call might drop out: his armoured doors interrupt the signal.

The final stage of a transition into a global mafia is the penetration of politics and the legal economy. The PCC is starting to do that, thinks Mr Gakiya. The attorney-general’s office in the state of São Paulo has investigated mayors and councillors. It found PCC involvement in everything from rubbish disposal and public transport to construction projects and hotels.

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