Brazil & Southern Cone - December 2024

The killers who murdered Rio de Janeiro city councillor Marielle Franco in 2018, one of the most notorious political assassinations in Brazil in recent years, have been convicted. But Franco’s friends, family, and allies have highlighted that the path to justice for her killing must continue with the trials of those behind it, who are believed to be a network of allegedly corrupt local politicians and former police officers. Concerns over organised crime and police corruption have intensified again not only in Rio, but also in neighbouring São Paulo state.

On 31 October a court in Rio found Ronnie Lessa and Élcio Vieira de Queiroz guilty of assassinating Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes, with Lessa sentenced to 78 years, nine months, and 30 days in prison, while De Queiroz was sentenced to 59 years, eight months, and 10 days. The two former military police officers are known to have ties with paramilitary criminal gangs known as ‘milícias’, which allegedly form alliances with local politicians in Rio, such as the Brazão family.

This local political family includes former Rio state deputy Domingos Brazão (1999-2015) and former Rio city councillor (2005-2019) and current federal deputy João ‘Chiquinho’ Brazão, who allegedly held political grudges against Franco and her left-wing Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL). A former chief of the Rio state civil police, Rivaldo Barbosa (March-December 2018) allegedly helped the Brazão brothers plan Franco’s assassination and impeded the initial investigations in 2018.

The milícias of Rio were founded as vigilante groups by former or active police officers, emerging in the past few decades as major criminal gangs which have been known to compete or collaborate with traditional drug trafficking organisations (DTOs). Even though it is in the favelas of Rio where milícia gangs first arose, the state of São Paulo has also seen concerns of police corruption and the possible rise of criminal activities resembling the extortion schemes of Rio’s milícias.

National daily Folha de São Paulo reported in early October that state prosecutors and police investigators suspect that a member of the criminal group Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) might have travelled to Rio in 2022 to understand how milícias were run, allegedly with the intent of setting up similar ‘protection taxes’ in Guarujá, a municipality on the coast of São Paulo state. Investigators believe that the PCC might have been behind murders last year of current and retired policemen acting as security guards for local businesses in Guarujá. The PCC is suspected of offering its security services to replace these slain police officers, demanding monthly payments akin to the protection rackets used by Rio’s milícias.

Authorities express concern

On 11 November the São Paulo state public security secretary, Guilherme Derrite, said that investigators have not confirmed the possible involvement of corrupt policemen in the assassination of Griztbach, but he also said “we cannot discount the possibility”. The victim reportedly refused to join the state police’s official witness protection programme, instead hiring police officers to act as his personal bodyguards, but authorities are investigating the actions of his private security detail. But on the day of his killing in Guarulhos airport, only one of the policemen was with him, prompting speculations as to whether the other bodyguards had some connections to the killers and arrived late to the airport on purpose.

PCC witness execution

Concerns rose in November over suspected links between the PCC and São Paulo’s military police following the assassination of a businessman named Antônio Vinicius Lopes Gritzbach, who had previously taken part in money laundering schemes with the DTO. Gritzbach had agreed a plea bargain with state police and was willing to testify on the PCC’s activities, but on 8 November he was shot dead in public, in São Paulo’s Guarulhos airport. On 12 November the state security secretariat ordered the dismissal of eight military police officers suspected of involvement in the plans to assassinate Gritzbach.