Brazil & Southern Cone - May 2020

Brazil’s public security authorities were able to claim a victory in April with the capture of one of the criminals on the justice & public security ministry’s (MJSP) 2020 ‘most wanted’ list. On the run for two decades, Gilberto Aparecido dos Santos, known as ‘Fuminho’, was understood to be closely linked to the leadership of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), Brazil’s largest drug trafficking organisation (DTO).

Dos Santos was arrested on 13 April in a luxury hotel in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, in a joint operation involving Brazil’s federal police (PF), the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Ministry of Justice, and the Mozambican police. He was extradited to Brazil on 19 April. Dos Santos had been on the run since he escaped from prison in Brazil in 1999, fleeing the country to settle in Bolivia, although he is also believed to have spent time in Paraguay. He is understood to be one of the PCC’s top providers of cocaine. The MJSP notes that Dos Santos is wanted for drug trafficking, crimes against property, and financing the escape of criminal leaders.

• Fuminho and Marcola

Dos Santos is believed to be a personal friend of suspected PCC leader Marco Willians Herbas Camacho ‘Marcola’ (who is behind bars in Brasília), and to have helped finance and organise the multiple attempts to break Camacho out of prison. Dos Santos is also suspected of having ordered the 2018 execution of two PCC leaders, Rogério Jeremias de Simone ‘Gegê do Mangue’ and Fabiano Alves de Souza ‘Paca’, a settling of accounts within the DTO.

At the time of his capture, Dos Santos was believed to be working with local organisations in several African countries to set up drug trafficking and money laundering schemes on behalf of the PCC – a sign of the transnational DTO’s growing international reach. Nevertheless, Dos Santos’ arrest is not expected to upset the PCC’s activities. Of more pressing concern to the DTO is the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic on its business – the price of cocaine has soared in Brazil as the supply chain from producing countries has been disrupted by the pandemic.