RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – One of Brazil’s biggest crime bosses has gone on the run after being freed from prison the previous day. André Oliveira Macedo, also known as André do Rap, was released from a high-security prison on Saturday, October 10th; however, the decision releasing him was reversed too late. He has been missing since.
Macedo is known as a senior member of the São Paulo-based First Command of the Capital (PCC) gang, which holds power in jails across Brazil and Paraguay and smuggles tons of cocaine into Europe.
His release was the result of a controversial order by Marco Aurélio Mello, one of 11 Justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court (STF), granting a habeas corpus plea from Macedo’s defence counsel.
Judge Mello granted Macedo’s release from the São Paulo prison on the grounds that the amount of time he had spent in detention awaiting trial had exceeded the statutory maximum of 90 days without a status review by the court. He was arrested in September 2019, and had been detained since.
The new statutory provision mandating court reviews of investigations every 90 days was included by Congress in the crime-fighting package approved early this year. President Bolsonaro declined to veto the provision although his then Minister of Justice, Sergio Moro, urged him to do so.
After his release, Macedo was ordered to go into house arrest. The order to release him, although strictly in accordance with the wording of the statute, was highly controversial. São Paulo state governor Joao Doria called it “an unacceptable condescension to criminals”.
Within a few hours, STF Presiding Justice Luiz Fux had suspended the decision and ordered Macedo to be re-arrested and returned to prison immediately. However, by this time he was already gone – with some local reports suggesting he fled the country.