Rio Lawmaker Caught on Wiretap Suggesting a Whacking-Out of the Copacabana Serpico Launches Crusade Against Wiretaps

CC in June 2007: “Wiretapping Au Go Go. Outlaw it, no. Stop leaks, yes.” The siege of the President’s brother united government and opposition in criticism of federal police methods, but this should not be used to impede investigations. A Ministry of Justice proposal would widen the use of surveillance.” See also Behind the Music: The Estadão on the Leaky Police and Brazil: Globo and the Leaky Police. Again.

Maria Fernanda Erdelyi of Consultor Jurídico features an interview with federal deputy Marina Maggessi of Rio de Janeiro, who — after being heard on a wiretap suggesting a police colleague turned anticorruption informant needed whacking out, which the man later was (he survived) — is now backing curbs on the use of wiretapping in investigations of political corruption and organized crime.

See also

• Brazil: “The CPI of Phreaks and Leaks”

Maria Fernanda somehow omits to mention the fact that Maggessi was captured on a federal police wiretap suggesting that a colleague of hers in Rio’s state judicial police — she headed the intelligence division under Álvaro Lins and the Garotinhos — needed, to paraphrase into the American urban vernacular, to have a shitload of caps busted in his ass.

Not long after, the policeman referred to in the conversation had a shitload of caps busted in his ass as he entered his car on the Avenida Atlántica in Copacabana. See

• Rio de Janeiro: The Copacabana Serpico?
• Bullet Winds Up Where Rio Lawmaker Suggested It Go: Into An Anticorruption Informant

He survived, minus several fingers, to grant an interview to (an insufferable and unreadable New Yorker clone) Piauí magazine.

Silvio Berlusconi has recently introduced a bill in Italy to punish judging who authorize wiretaps in all but mafia and terror cases — excluding political corruption. … Notes the AP (for which Maggessi served as a source in a story last year suggesting Rio militias were genuine vigilante groups rather than criminal organizations):

Premier Silvio Berlusconi, himself no stranger to being investigated by prosecutors, wants a law to restrict what he says has become an abusive practice — one that infringes on privacy rights and weighs heavily on the taxpayer. His government is working on a proposed law that could limit the use of phone intercepts to only the most serious cases involving organized crime and terrorist groups. There would be stiffer sentences for illegal taps and for officials who leak the content to the media. … The proliferation of wiretaps means newspapers often publish leaked intercepts involving politicians and VIPs who happened to be talking to someone under investigation.

Happens a lot in Brazil. Veja magazine is very fond of this technique.

Para a deputada federal Marina Maggessi (PPS-RJ), grampo é uma realidade concreta de sua vida. Inspetora da Polícia Civil do Rio de Janeiro, Marina teve seu telefone interceptado indiretamente quando a Polícia Federal grampeou os telefones de colegas seus, acusados na Operação Gladiador de dar proteção ao jogo ilegal no Rio.

In the view of federal deputy Maggessi (PPS-Rio), wiretapping is a concrete reality in her life. An inspector in the state judicial police of Rio, Marina had her phone intercepted indirectly when the federal police tapped the phones of some of her colleagues, accused of selling protection to illegal gambling in Rio, in Operation Gladiator.

Rio: “Army Troops Take Part in Narcoexecutions”

Army Unit in Deadly Alliance With Drug Gang, is the headline in today’s O Globo.

A follow-up to

• Rio: The Army Charges Up Providência Hill; Residents Charge “Abuses”

Whether the military should play a role in public security in Rio de Janeiro has been a long-running controversy. Proponents pointed to the “success” of the Brazilian-led UN peace-keeping mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH. See, for example,

• “Haiti is a Laboratory For Rio”: Estadão

Others, including veterans of the Mexican and Colombian drug wars, have warned that militarization of efforts to suppress the drug trade tends to lead to the same result observed with civilian police forces: They are easily neutralized by corruption and infiltration.

Mexico’s Zetas, for example, are recruited from former elite paratroopers. The drug cartels just plain pay better. Much better.

This seems like a potential case in point. We have seen investigations here indicating that arms and ammo fall off the back of army loading docks, that ex-soldiers provide advanced sniper training and rifles to criminals, that soldiers and ex-soldiers are involved in both drug gangs and militias, and so on and so forth.

Overnight, a Brazilian court ordered the temporary arrest, for 30 days, of 11 Army troops accused of the murder of three young men detained on Saturday, in the Morro da Providência, downtown Rio de Janeiro. Seven privates, three sergeants and an officer allegedly “sold” the young men to drug traffickers from the Morro da Mineira, in Catumbi, which belongs to a rival faction. The bodies were discovered yesterday afternoon at the Gramacho garbage dump , in Caxias, shot a number of times. After six hours of questioning at the Eastern Military Command, some of the soldiers confessed to having handed over the victims to the traffickers. The Army will open an IPM, an internal disciplilnary proceeding. Providência residents demonstrated in front of the barracks of Army units. The arrest warrant was requested by police commander Ricardo Dominguez, of the 4th Police District (Downtown), who is investigating the case.

On recent developments at the Morro da Mineira, see also

• NMM(-TV)SNBCNNBS: Brazil’s TV Record Rio Covers “The Mineira War”
• Rio de Janeiro: Did Military Police Free Mineira Marauder?
• “No One Dead is Innocent”: Virgina Tech and Catumbi

A scandalous and terrifying bangue-bangue between cops and criminals in Catumbi, a strategic point in the downtown commute, last year ended in (1) a major media perp walk of a major drug gang leader, followed by (2) the quiet release of said major perp on the orders of an officer in one of the police units engaged in the three-way combat that day.

Whatever happened to that case?

… Seven privates, three sergeants, and an officer are accused of having “sold” three young men detained in the Morro da Providencia on Saturday night to a rival drug gang in the Morro da Mineira. The bodies of Wellington Gonzaga de Costa, 19 , Marcos Paulo da Silva Correia, 17, and David Wilson Florêncio, 24, where found yesterday afternoon at the Gramacho garbage dump in Caxias by state judicial police. During questioning, some of the soldiers confessed to having taken the young men to Mineira, a shantytown controlled by a rival drug gang.

The three young men were approached by soldiers as they arrived at a dance being held in Américo Brum Square, at the top of Providência hill. From there, they were taken to an army barracks in Santo Cristo, from where they were taken to the Morro da Mineira. The Caxias medical examiner noted that the youngest victim was executed with two gunshots and the others with nearly 20 gun shots each. Most of the bullets were fired into the face.