An association of criminals, defendants with a filthy record and scandalous suspects could lead a candidate to the second round of the election for mayor of the city of São Paulo. Some of them are associated with the PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital).
The story caused some scandal, inconsequential indignation until Saturday, when the courts removed Pablo Marçal (PRTB) from the networks. But this type of person persists, with success fertilized by the degradation they cause.
Such conformism is nothing new. Various forms of organized crime are part of the country’s landscape and bowels. The PCC finances or presents candidates for mayor and city council in cities in São Paulo, holds positions, influences bidding processes, wins public service contracts or prevents campaigns of opposing candidates in their territories.
It doesn’t stop there, of course. Municipal politicians are assassinated or threatened, in São Paulo or Rio, we know this every election. Militias and their political associates openly run construction companies and land grabs in Rio de Janeiro.
PCC institutions control the most violent crime and order in poor neighborhoods; they have connections in São Paulo politics. As is well known, militias and factions in Rio manage the supply of internet, gas, and electricity—in the case of electricity, there are even statistics on losses due to “gatos.”
The State is not only being taken over by crime—it also produces it, the most obvious case being the militias. After all, the former president of the Republic of Darkness’s handyman was part of the militia group.
A few years ago, it became clear how the PCC and Comando Vermelho joined forces to destroy the Amazon. Deforested and/or illegally occupied areas are used as landing strips for drug trafficking planes and other businesses; land grabbers are paid for this and other logistics services.
Money from drug traffickers and their service providers buys and sells cattle, gold, timber and other materials. A system links deforestation to illegal mining, extractivism and agriculture, land grabbing, drug trafficking and some other financial channel.
In the city of São Paulo, police and prosecutors say, the PCC or associated companies build buildings, have gas stations, hotels, stores, call centers, antennas to capture police communications, recycling centers, dismantling or resale of stolen or non-stolen cell phones. The PCC has cryptocurrency brokers, hackers and was trying to create a kind of bank in order to launder money.
Columns and Blogs
“Money laundering,” however, is a misleading term. It conveys the idea that only the financial results of criminal operations need to be given a legal appearance. However, crime and “legal” activities are often intertwined from the very beginning of the operation.
Who produces, sells or rents tractors, trucks, boats, construction materials, chains, fuel, tools and chemicals for deforestation and mining (or, for that matter, exports chemicals for the production of cocaine)? Who buys and sells illegal gold, timber or cattle? Who buys recyclable waste or cars stolen by criminals?
Criminal enterprises are interconnected by faction networks and cannot survive without contact with legal markets. “Common” crime certainly wants to reach power, but power and politics exist outside the State, and also in markets, both legal and illegal. There are many things mixed together.
What we are beginning to see more broadly is a kind of political plan, with funding for candidates, support for bills and appointments to positions. The illegal business defends its political interests: it wants to be institutionalized, perhaps “legal.”
As in so many other national disasters, we don’t care; the police alone won’t be able to handle it. Crime is on the ballot. But “the institutions are working,” as so many political scientists say.
LINK PRESENT: Did you like this text? Subscribers can access any link seven times a day for free. Just click on the blue F below.
