Bolivia has become safe haven for “Narcosur,” the PCC’s drug cartel

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – They invest in jewelry, medical clinics, restaurants, farms and walk safely with their families in the region of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the group’s stronghold and the passageway for drugs coming from Peru and Colombia to join Bolivian cocaine.

From there, the Brazilian “narcos” travel in planes and helicopters to spend their vacations on the beaches of the northeast, where they close deals with the Ndrine, the families that make up the ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia.

The most powerful of Italy’s criminal organizations, it owns 40% of all drugs trafficked by the PCC in Europe. This is the tax on cocaine shipments from South America circulating on the continent. There, a kilo of drugs, bought in Santa Cruz de La Sierra for US$1,000, costs up to US$35,000.

Seized photographs and messages on the cell phones of trafficker Anderson Lacerda Pereira, aka “Gordo,” along with intelligence from the prison system, the Federal Police and the São Paulo Civil Police, show the ostentation and daily life of the cartel’s leaders. Owner of a network of medical clinics in São Paulo, Gordo would invest in the same field in Bolivia.

NARCOSUR

“Narcosur, the PCC cartel, is currently the fastest growing criminal organization in the world,” says attorney Márcio Sérgio Christino, responsible for the first indictment against the faction’s top leadership in 2002, when Marco Willians Herbas Camacho, aka “Marcola,” began to ascend to the top of the group.

After that, many things changed. Profits from international drug trafficking, estimated at over R$1.5 billion (US$270 million) a year, have increased to such an extent that the faction last August decided to suspend the monthly R$950 payment to its released members.

This contribution, called “Cebola,” had been mandatory since the 1990s and was used to support costs such as the PCC TUR, buses that transport relatives of inmates from São Paulo to prisons in the western part of the state. It was also used to pay for the services of “Sintonia dos Gravatas,” the faction’s legal department, food baskets and other services of the organization’s so-called “prison populism.”

“This was only possible through international trafficking,” says prosecutor Lincoln Gakiya. Threatened to death by the PCC, Gakiya is responsible for Operation Sharks, which identified the faction leaders who took control of the organization on the streets after the settling of scores that in 2018 killed Rogério Jeremias de Simone, aka “Gegê do Mangue.” The main leader is Valdeci Alves dos Santos, 49 years old.

Colorido is responsible for trafficking logistics conducted on behalf of the group. PCC men and their associates may buy, transport and sell from the “family,” but they also conduct personal business. “They team up to transport drugs from another trafficker in the same truck, plane or container,” Gakiya says.

Members of the Federal Police point to three reasons why the PCC is operating confidently in Bolivia, despite the fact that Brazil has a law enforcement cooperation agreement with the country. The first is the Bolivian National Police’s reluctance to work jointly with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The second is a certain degree of rivalry with Brazil and, finally, the likelihood that drug traffickers are enjoying the protection of corrupt police and military officers.

Today, this fleet is controlled by Colorido and his associates, such as Gordo. Born in Jardim de Piranhas, Rio Grande do Norte, Colorido has been on the run since 2014, when he was released from Valparaiso prison, in the interior of São Paulo, after being granted a temporary leave of absence for Father’s Day.

He was arrested for the first time in 1993, in Atibaia (São Paulo), accused of bodily injury. Over the following 10 years, he would be accused half a dozen times of trafficking, carrying bladed weapons, conspiracy, extortion and murder, until he was arrested. He spent 11 years in prison, was involved in two riots, and rose through the ranks. “He became the main organizer of the PCC’s international trafficking,” Gakiya says.

In Bolivia, Colorido also controls a fleet of drug trucks. His right-hand man is Sergio Luis de Freitas, aka “Mijao.” “Mijao” reportedly owns a restaurant in Santa Cruz de La Sierra. Other drug traffickers also invest some of their money in Bolivia.

In Lacerda’s four cell phones, seized by the 4th Police Precinct of Guarulhos in 2020, forensic experts found photographs showing him inspecting airplanes in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, as well as parties and family trips to corporate headquarters and even meetings with alleged drug suppliers in a bar. “The pictures show his utterly peaceful routine in Bolivia,” says Deputy Fernando Santiago, who led Operation Soldi Sporchi and serves in the State Bureau of Narcotics Investigations (DENARC).

Dealers like “Gordo” use cryptocurrencies in international transactions. “They pay up to US$20,000 for a ‘blind flight’ by airplane pilots to Brazil,” Lacerda says. “Gordo” is part of the group that grew up in the Baixada Santista, with strong ties to the Santos port dock.

This is where the man the Federal Police identified as the top drug trafficker linked to the faction comes in: André de Oliveira Macedo, aka “André do Rap,” whose members include Suaélio Martins Leda, “Canam” and Moacir Levi Correia, “Bi da Baixada.” Gordo, Leda, Correia and André do Rap were released by court rulings between 2016 and 2020 – two by habeas corpus, one due to Covid-19 and the other was granted the right to respond to a trafficking case in freedom.

“They all operate from Bolivia,” says Delegate Rodrigo Costa, head of the Federal Police unit investigating the faction in São Paulo.

Bolivia is also identified as the shelter of Marcos Roberto de Almeida, “Tuta,” another under investigation in Operation Sharks. Tuta was the commercial attaché of the Mozambican consulate in Belo Horizonte and is designated by prison intelligence as the faction’s street boss. The African country was the destination of a 5-ton cocaine shipment that the Federal Police seized on October 5, in the port of Rio de Janeiro. Hidden in boxes of soap powder, the shipment was the largest seizure in the history of Rio.

From Africa, the drugs would head to Las Palmas, Spain. Its passage through Mozambique was a way to evade inspection of South American cargo in European ports. It also points to a new route for the cartel: in addition to the ports of Santos and Itajaí (SC), the faction often uses Fortaleza, Recife and Natal to ship drugs to Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States.