How would you, dear readers, define an organization that parked an automobile filled with explosives with a remote detonator at a justice facility? What if, in addition, it prepared a car bomb to carry out an attack that would destabilize the financial market in its host country? If that same organization, then, carried out 293 attacks using explosives, heavy weapons against public buildings, security officials and infrastructure services? Everyone can call it what they want. But the name of these actions is terrorism. And the organization that practiced them is the CCP.
But, certainly, anyone who calls the old rioters who invaded and destroyed public buildings in Brasilia terrorists will never refer to the PCC for what the organization actually is. You will most likely say that calling the CCP a terrorist organization is an exaggeration. Stupid.
The convergence between transnational organized crime and terrorism is something that has been extensively studied and finally understood by several governments and agencies that fight this type of threat, which goes far beyond drug trafficking, smuggling, human trafficking and other typical actions. of mafias with international activity.
For some time now, Brazilian drug dealers have provided services to international terrorists and mafias. Fernandinho Beira Mar even became a guest of the FARC when he was on the run in Colombia. A gesture by narco-terrorists that went beyond gratitude. They kept a strategic partner safe, which provided them with access to guns smuggled in exchange for cocaine. The union of the Comando Vermelho – which is who decides everything that happens in CPX do Alemão and CPX da Maré – and the FARC gave the Brazilian criminal group control of the Amazon routes.
The CCP went much further. The organization this week was plundered with a plot to kidnap and kill Brazilian officials emerged as a prison gang, but it can no longer be treated as such. That famous strategy by Rede Globo to avoid the name PCC – “criminal organization that operates inside and outside prisons”, which started to be copied by most of the press and even official communications – not only helps the PCC, but also underestimates its potential damage to security, stability and democracy.
The PCC has evolved over the years and has long ceased to be a chain gang. Or the “blah-blah-blah from inside and outside prisons”. If you want to read more about this evolution, I recommend clicking on this link.
The facts narrated at the beginning of this column occurred between 2002 and 2006. In other words, the PCC has used terrorism for some time as an element of its action, which is political. Speaking of politics, the PCC got into the activity with both feet. financing parties and/or candidates and quite possibly electing their own candidates. The list of cases is long.
It should be noted that the use of car bombs in 2002 failed, in the case of Barra Funda Forumdue to the incompetence of the terrorists, and in the São Paulo Stock Exchangefor the successful action of the São Paulo police, which identified the plan.
The 2002 car bombs and the attacks on São Paulo in 2006 took place on the eve of the presidential elections and had political objectives, as has already been narrated by several sources and recognized by the PCC members themselves. In both cases, the organization had a direct interest in helping elect the candidate they felt was best for them. If the acts influenced the result, it is not possible to know. But the PCC was happy with what the ballot boxes for both elections said.
Contrary to what many think, superlative attacks like those of September 11, 2001 are exceptional. Terrorists don’t need to kill a lot of people. The aim is to terrify a lot of people. For this reason, the declarations of authorities that classified Brazilians arrested in 2016 in preparatory acts for attacks on the Rio de Janeiro Olympics as “amateurs” were absolutely primary.
Detonating pressure cookers with explosives at a marathon in Boston, or vans running over cyclists in New York and hitting pedestrians in Barcelona, were low-budget, action-movie-style sophistication. With very little and killing little, the lone wolves of the Islamic State did a lot during the wave of attacks that spread across several countries.
Kidnapping and killing a senator, a state prosecutor, a federal delegate cannot be seen as common criminal plans. Nor is it a common criminal organization. The PCC wanted to send a message to every police officer, every prosecutor, every judge, every politician and, above all, every Brazilian. “Don’t mess with us.” “We are in charge.” And, why not?, “The wind has turned. We won”.
Sergio Moro made life harder for PCC leaders by transferring them to federal prisons and trying to cut the leaders’ channels of communication with the outside world. I’m not going to dirty my column with the foul language of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, but it seems that the PCC has, in relation to the former Lava Jato judge, the same grudge.
The PCC used millions of reais in preparatory actions, such as the acquisition of weapons, explosives, rental of captives, travel, intelligence and monitoring. They even cloned Federal Police vehicles to try to capture and execute chief Elvis Secco, who is currently attached to the Federal Police in Mexico City.
Delegate Secco had his head put at a premium for having been responsible for the biggest financial losses that the PCC has suffered in its history, close to R$ 1 billion, and for the arrest of some of its most important members and providers, including Gilberto Aparecido dos Santos, Fuminho.
In 2021, the United States Department of the Treasury included the PCC on the list of organizations designated as transnational crime. The measure was an important step towards being able to expand the actions of search and seizure of resources that the PCC moves around the planet. Often disguised as legal and recognized companies. Meanwhile, Brazilian authorities refuse to see the PCC in its true dimension.
They deny their association with Hezbollah terrorists, as a provider of trafficking logistics for the Lebanese in exchange for access to evasion and money laundering networks.
They turn a blind eye to the evolution of the CCP, its convergence and transformation into a terrorist organization.
They ignore that, when planning the kidnapping and death of authorities, they do not want revenge. But consolidate through fear.
Fear is the main objective of terrorism.
#Brazil #understand #PCC