Brazil’s largest criminal organization is suspected of laundering money in Portugal. They bought Fafe and had previously tried to acquire other clubs. One thousand members of the PCC will be in Portugal.
Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), Brazil’s largest criminal organization, is suspected of using Portugal to launder money obtained from drug trafficking in the country of origin. An investigation by the newspaper Público now reveals that, during the last year, businessmen linked to the PCC attempted to anonymously acquire the Varzim, Vilaverdense and Felgueiras football clubs, and ended up settling in Fafe.
According to a report from the Information and Security Services (SIS), there are approximately a thousand elements linked to the group.
One of the suspects of being part of a money laundering scheme for the PCC – and center of negotiations with the clubs – is Ulisses de Souza Jorge, Éder Militão’s agent who used the former Porto player to reach sports businessmen in Portugal. , like Pinto. da Costa and his son, Alexandre Pinto da Costa. This is how he proposed the purchase of the future Sociedade Anónima Desportiva do Varzim Sport Club, an operation that failed. Together with the Brazilian Christiano Lino de Menezes, investigated by the Brazilian authorities for links with the PCC, Ulisses Jorge also made a proposal to Vilaverdense, for two million euros, and to Felgueiras, for 2.5 million.
The businessmen later ended up arriving at Fafe, where they currently work, and have the former FC Porto player as leader of the Fafe football society, representing UJ – Football Talent – Ulisses Jorge’s company, based in Portugal. , from Benfica and Sporting. , Vanderlei Fernandes Silva, who would also be leading a future Varzim SAD.
Santa Casa owes 40,000 euros to the largest criminal network in Brazil
“I have told the Portuguese authorities that, from the moment a PCC structure is identified in Portugal with this level of internal organization and members, means that it is very well structured and permanent”said Lincoln Gakiya, a prosecutor and one of the main investigators of organized crime in Brazil.
As in Brazil, the PCC reproduces the same internal structure in Portugal, thus having “a disciplinary sector, a kind of internal court to resolve disciplinary issues between members and where death sentences and sentences are decided for those who do not respect the rules.” statutes of the organization. .” The prison is a popular recruiting site for the CCP, which ends up having the ability to multiply “within the prison system”.
Minister of Justice and Public Security of Brazil guarantees to be aware of the presence of the criminal group PCC in Portugal
“In Portugal we have identified that there are already those responsible in the male and female prison system,” he stated, but he believes that our prison system is not prepared for this type of organized and structured criminals.
The growing presence of this criminal network in Portugal thus demonstrates the country’s role as a gateway for drugs to Europe. With the ports of Lisbon and Sines on the trafficking routes, the PCC will control unloading, storage and distribution to other European destinations, according to SIS data.
Source: Observadora
