HomeNewsBriefRelatives of Jailed PCC Members Launder Millions For Brazil Gang
BRIEF

Relatives of Jailed PCC Members Launder Millions For Brazil Gang

BRAZIL / 11 JUL 2019 BY CAT RAINSFORD EN

Brazilian prison gang, the PCC, has laundered an estimated $15 million of drug money through accounts opened by relatives of jailed members, demonstrating the growing sophistication of the gang’s criminal tactics.

The money-laundering scheme was exposed as a result of “Operation Welfare," a series of police raids across the state of São Paulo targeting suspects associated with the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC). Arrested during the operation were 35 people, including 19 women.

SEE ALSO: First Capital Command (PCC) Profile

According to the São Paulo police, the scheme worked by bribing visitors of detainees to allow the deposit and transfer PCC money through their bank accounts. These visitors, mostly wives and girlfriends of newer gang members, were offered assistance with transport, rent and medical expenses in exchange for their collaboration.

In this way, the PCC is believed to have laundered at least $280,000 per month from drug trafficking since 2013.

Among those arrested in the raids was a criminal known as “Motoboy," believed to be responsible for administering the scheme. Motoboy coordinated with PCC cells inside the state’s prisons to enlist the visitors, and then coordinated the withdrawal of the money channeled through their accounts.

InSight Crime Analysis

Although the PCC has long maintained a large-scale drug trafficking network, the sums laundered through this system provide fresh evidence of the sheer scale of these operations and the elaborate mechanisms used to conceal them.

The prison gang, formed in the early 1990s, first entered the drug trade by coordinating trafficking inside Brazil's jails. By 2012, the group's drug trafficking profits had ballooned to $32 million a year. The PCC has since expanded its operations across the continent.

Ledgers seized in 2018 revealed that the PCC had developed large-scale money laundering strategies, including through currency exchange businesses and gas stations purchased with illicit funds. The recent bust shows that the group is also laundering millions through mechanisms that are more subtle and harder to trace.

SEE ALSO: PCC Files Document Gang’s Explosive Growth in Brazil and Beyond

The scheme builds on the PCC’s history of exploiting imprisoned members and their female relatives. The group charges “union dues” from members in jail, and in 2015 was found to be bribing women to deliver information and communications devices to detainees.

These patterns of exploitation are becoming increasingly common across the continent. In Guatemala, for instance, gangs have been found to be using the bank accounts of their wives and girlfriends to launder the profits from extortion.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

BRAZIL / 8 AUG 2023

Illegal mining is by far the most widespread and insidious environmental crime occurring in the Amazon’s tri-border regions.

CHINA AND CRIME / 9 DEC 2022

The rise of synthetic drugs, in particular fentanyl and methamphetamine, has changed the landscape of opportunity for drug traffickers in…

BRAZIL / 29 SEP 2022

Brazil is facing a presidential election that could genuinely reshape its criminal landscape. How do Bolsonaro and Lula compare?…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…