Brazilian Crime Boss Linked to Italian Mafia on Cocaine Route Leverages Court Clashes

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A luxurious lifestyle, intelligent, entrepreneurial, and non-violent profile. According to investigations by the São Paulo Civil Police, the São Paulo Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the Federal Police, this is André de Oliveira Macedo – the 43-year-old drug dealer known as André do Rap, who escaped after securing a writ of habeas corpus from a Federal Supreme Court (STF) Justice on Saturday; a decision that would be overturned hours later by the Chief Justice, but too late to prevent the crime boss’s flight from justice.

Police authorities believe he fled to Paraguay or Bolivia soon after his release and that it will be difficult to recapture him. The last time he escaped, he lived in the Netherlands and was missing for six years.

According to police, the trafficker, now on São Paulo and Interpol’s most wanted list, controls the export of cocaine from Latin America (produced in Peru, Bolivia, and mainly Colombia) to European ports through the port of Santos, on São Paulo State’s coast.

“He is basically in charge of the logistics of sending cocaine from the Brazilian criminal faction PCC [First Command of the Capital] to Europe,” says detective Elvis Secco, general coordinator of Drug Enforcement, Guns and Criminal Factions for the Federal Police. “It is even up to him to make the contacts between the PCC and other international criminal organizations,” says Secco.

André do Rap is considered by police to be the main link between the PCC and the Italian mafia ‘Ndrangheta‘, today the world’s leading criminal organization controlling drug distribution in Europe. The PCC, in turn, controls most of the drug trafficking in Brazil and even part of the production of marijuana and cocaine in neighboring countries like Bolivia and Paraguay. Marijuana is distributed in Brazil. Part of the cocaine is left on the Brazilian domestic market and part heads to the international market, mainly European.

The gang lord allegedly became a key player in the organization after the death of the trafficker known as Gegê do Mangue, who was killed in 2018 in an internal PCC dispute and who was in charge of this part of the gang’s dealings. André had been growing within the organization, had drawn the attention of its main leaders, now imprisoned, and naturally took over the position.

According to Secco, the fact that the trafficker is free is a blow to the fight against international drug trafficking and it will be difficult to recapture him, given that he has plenty of money and contacts. From inside the prison, the trafficker’s difficulty in running the faction affairs was greater. Visits were suspended because of the pandemic and André’s contacts with the streets were restricted to attorneys and correspondence.

“He won’t wait [to be arrested again] at home, you can be sure of that,” warned prosecutor Lincoln Gakiya of São Paulo’s Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating the criminal faction, in statements to the Brazilian press shortly after the trafficker was released. There was no shooting or violence needed for him to escape the radar of Justice.

In an irony of today’s Brazil, he leveraged the Supreme Court clashes, where Justices are split over the habeas corpus granted by Justice Marco Aurélio de Mello. The injunction was suspended and overturned that same day by the STF’s Chief Justice Luiz Fux.

The case began to be analyzed on Wednesday by the full STF in plenary session but was adjourned till Thursday after 6 Justices had voted – all in favor of revoking habeas corpus. The remaining 4 Justices will cast their votes today.

André do Rap was on the run for six years until he was arrested in September 2019. At the time, he was staying in a mansion in Angra dos Reis with imported cars, a luxury motorboat, two helicopters, and cash. His seized assets were valued at R$28 million, most of which held under aliases or false identities. At the time of his arrest, the trafficker was in the company of several people and did not react or try to escape. No weapons or drugs were found at the scene.

Originally from Baixada Santista, the metropolitan area surrounding the port of Santos in São Paulo, André do Rap worked as a music producer and even recorded some songs in parallel with his criminal activity before being arrested. Some of his songs can be seen on YouTube. Like other rap singers, he rhymes about the life of a criminal in Baixada Santista, the prisons, and the poor communities controlled by the drug traffic in the region.

According to the police, he even produced several performers from the São Paulo coast and just before his arrest, he was preparing to invest in soccer, buying and selling players.

Sentenced to 25 years in prison in two international drug trafficking charges in 2013 and 2014, André do Rap lived in the Netherlands for a few years while he was on the run with a false identity, according to police investigations. During this time, he allegedly helped deepen contact between the PCC and the ‘Ndrangheta’. Back in Brazil, he welcomed business partners from the Italian mafia on several occasions, which according to the police proved his closeness to them, something hitherto unprecedented in the faction’s history.

In a Brazilian court case, André do Rap has already been defended by the same attorneys as those accused of being part of the Italian mafia organization, point out investigations by the DEIC (State Department of Criminal Investigations of the State of São Paulo) of the São Paulo Civil Police.

“From what I discussed with the police involved in the case, this trafficker has a different profile, he is more sophisticated,” says retired jurist and prosecutor Wálter Maierovitch of the TJ-SP (São Paulo State Court of Appeals), a scholar of relations between Brazilian organized crime and the Italian mafia.

“This shows a very great degree of closeness with the Europeans, perhaps in an unprecedented way in the PCC’s history to date.” With his release and subsequent escape and the recent arrest and death of other leaders, André do Rap is today considered by the police as the PCC’s main leader out of prison.

Source: El País