Rio: Comando Vermelho Spreadsheets Hacked, Cops Say

Graffito on Rio ice-cream shop: “The Red Command just cocks things up. “

The Agência Brasil clips an item from the Jornal do Brasil today that will be of interest to those guys at Global Guerrillas, who always have interesting observations about the networked economics of asymmetrical violence-mongering as a form of 21st-century misanthropreneurial event-driven chaos arbitrage, yada yada yada.

Translation and commentary on the original coverage can be found here.

Yet another police raid into the Complexo Alemão in Rio de Janeiro this weekend — the vast shantytown sprawl around the Penha cathedral in the Zona Norte — nets accounting records of the Comando Vermelho, anonymous police sources claim.

See also Bala Perdida: A Letter from Olaria.

You may recall a similar case in which a police raid on the Rio caça-níqueis (electronic “one-armed bandit”) mafia late last year yielded a USB pen drive with payroll spreaedsheets that identified some 130 police offers paid to operate the illegal gambling machine enterprise — including a former Rio police chief recently elected to the legislature, if I have this straight.

And a Globo TV reporter, as well: José Messias Xavier was allegedly selling confidential information he gleaned from authorities to the bicho bankers and one-armed bandit kings. See Pela Internet: How Rio One-Armed Bandit King Paid Off Cops.

Tráfico paga até R$ 40 mil para tirar presos da cadeia

Traffic pays up to R$40,000 to get prisoners out of jail.

- A facção criminosa Comando Vermelho gastou R$ 135.580 para executar o ataque que parou o Rio de Janeiro em 28 de dezembro. A informação está nas oito folhas da contabilidade da quadrilha apreendida pela polícia, ontem, na Vila Cruzeiro. O dinheiro foi retirado de um fundo que recolhe, mensalmente, de R$ 11 mil a R$ 18 mil mensais [sic] em cada uma das 52 favelas dominadas pela organização. O livro-caixa do CV informa, por exemplo, que o traficante Roberto da Fazendinha foi libertado do Presídio Vicente Piragibe em troca de uma propina de R$ 40 mil. Mais R$ 3.500 garantiram a volta às ruas de outro traficante ligado ao grupo criminoso. (pág. 1 e Cidade, págs. A12 e A13)

The Red Comnand criminal faction spent R$135,580 to execute the attack that shut down Rio de Janeiro on December 28, 2006. That information is contained in the eight pages of accounting records seized by police yesterday in the Vila Cruzeiro. The money was taken from a fund that collects, monthly, from R$11,000 to R$18,000 every month [sic] in each of the 52 favelas dominated by the organization.

This is the first time I have every seen a candidate hard number on the number of shantytowns dominated by a drug gang. Reportedly, 90 to 100 of the poor neighborhoods are dominated by militias now — though I have never seen that number sourced to an on-the-record beancounter. It remains a rumor, as far as I am concerned.

Given that the CV is reputedly the largest drug gang — competing with the ADA and, what is it? The Third Command? — that might mean that it would not be accurate to report, as the AP constantly does, that Rio shantytowns are “principally dominated by drug gangs.”

The way they word that boilerplate, it always seems that they are implying that most of the 600 or so shantytowns in Rio are traffic-dominated. Or so it seems to me. See also “Vigilantes Impose Peace in Rio Slums.”

Who controls more favelas? Drug gangs or militias? Which is more common: Favelas dominated by criminal enterprises of one type or another or favelas not so dominated?

I am waiting for some hard numbers.

The ledger of the CV reports, for example, that Roberto da Fazendinha was freed from the Vicente Piragibe prison for a bribe of R$40,000. Another R$3,500 guaranteed a return to the streets for another trafficker tied to the criminal gang …

Let me see if JB has more. On why the banana-republican Jota Bé requires constant fact-checking and filtration for biohazardous sludge, see also “The Armed Forces Will Occupy Rio de Janeiro” — Not!