A parliamentary report released last week accuses more than 800 officials at all levels of organized crimes. RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL -- The longest and most detailed investigation into narcotics trafficking and organized crime ever carried out in Brazil has found that drug-related corruption and money laundering have become so widespread that the country is unable to properly fight the problem. An unprecedented inquiry carried out by a commission of lawmakers with wide-reaching powers spent more than a year investigating organized crime. Their damning report named 824 people it accuses of crimes ranging from drug trafficking to gun running to tax evasion. [continues 685 words]
A congressional commission in Brazil investigating drug-trafficking has approved its final report, recommending that more than eight-hundred people, including politicians, police officers and business leaders, be indicted. The commission worked for fourteen months, uncovering a network of criminals who use Brazil as a transit point for smuggling drugs from neighbouring Colombia, Bolivia and Peru to the United States and Europe. The report will now go to the public prosecutor's office. But correspondents say the challenges of bringing anyone to trial are huge. For example, three of the politicians named have parliamentary immunity from prosecution. From the newsroom of the BBC World Service [end]
Free-trade Rules Permit Shipments Of 'Precursors' MANAUS, Brazil -- Although the Clinton administration has declared a risky and controversial $1.3 billion war against Latin America's cocaine trade, it isn't fighting on what may be the easiest and most promising front. While the administration is providing massive military and other aid to help Colombia and other Andean nations stop coca growing, processing and trafficking, experts say the chemicals needed to refine cocaine from coca leaves continue to flow unhindered to drug labs. Each country involved blames another for the problem. [continues 762 words]
A probe into organized crime and drug trafficking released Thursday by the Brazilian Congress implicated nearly 200 public officials, including at least 10 national and state congressmen and an array of policemen, judges, mayors and city councilmen. The congressional committee that directed the inquiry recommended that 75 police officials be investigated for crimes ranging from extortion to drug trafficking. Ultimately, the report implicated more police than drug dealers. The 5,000-page report is the culmination of an investigation, begun in April 1999, that has gripped this nation of 170 million people for months. The inquiry marked the first time Congress has taken such a long and detailed look into the country's $25 billion drug-trafficking trade. [continues 241 words]
A yearlong congressional inquiry into drug trafficking and money laundering has concluded with a report calling for the indictment of some 300 people and an overhaul of government counter-narcotics policies. Most of those named in the document are reputed drug dealers, but the investigating committee also recommended that charges be filed against 75 police officials, 30 judges, 25 businessmen and 30 elected officials, ranging from members of Congress to mayors. [end]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov. 30 - A probe into organized crime and drug trafficking released today by the Brazilian Congress implicated nearly 200 officials, including at least 10 members of national and state congresses and an array of police officers, judges, mayors and city council members. The congressional committee directing the inquiry recommended that 75 police officials be investigated for crimes ranging from extortion to drug trafficking. Ultimately, the report implicated more police officers than drug dealers. The 5,000-page report was the culmination of an investigation, begun in April 1999, that has gripped this country of 170 million people for months. The inquiry marked the first time that the Congress has taken such a long and detailed look into Brazil's $25 billion drug-trafficking trade. [continues 407 words]
CAMPINAS, Brazil - The woman gently touched Joao Herbert's forearm as he stepped off the crowded sidewalk and into an appliance store. "Aren't you the boy who just arrived here from America?" asked Maria Leonar Vieira de Moraes, 60. Herbert smiled and nodded yes. "Welcome to your home," she said. Then she reached up and hugged him. Hers was an oft-expressed sentiment during Herbert's first week here. But it masked the brutal, if sometimes poignant, complexities of the 22-year-old's arrival in a homeland that is as alien to him as landing on the moon. [continues 1522 words]
CAMPINAS, Brazil - The unfamiliar faces smile at him on the subway. Total strangers flash him the thumbs-up sign and wish him good luck. People he has never met offer him a job. For Joao Herbert, deported from the United States to a homeland he barely recalls, the warmth, of Brazilians is a welcome surprise - and helps to case the anger and hurt that won't go away. "I have been very fortunate since my arrival. People have opened their doors and hearts to, me in a way I could never have expected," he said. [continues 608 words]
CAMPINAS, Brazil - The woman gently touched Joao Herbert's forearm as he stepped off the crowded sidewalk and into an appliance store. "Aren't you the boy who just arrived here from America?" asked Maria Leonar Vieira de Moraes, 60. Herbert smiled and nodded yes. "Welcome to your home," she said. Then she reached up and hugged him. Hers was an oft-expressed sentiment during Herbert's first week here. But it masked the brutal, if sometimes poignant, complexities of the 22-year-old's arrival in a homeland that is as alien to him as landing on the moon. [continues 1618 words]
`Precursors' Used In Latin American Labs MANAUS, Brazil --Although the Clinton administration has declared a risky and controversial $1.3 billion war against Latin America's cocaine trade, it isn't fighting on what may be the easiest and most promising front. The administration is providing massive military and other aid to help Colombia and other Andean nations stop coca growing, processing and trafficking, but experts say the chemicals, or ``precursors,'' needed to refine cocaine from coca leaves continue to flow unhindered to drug labs. Each country involved blames another for the problem. [continues 757 words]
Refining Process Requires Large Shipments That Can Be Tracked MANAUS, Brazil -- Although the Clinton administration has declared a risky $1.3 billion war against Latin America's cocaine trade, it isn't fighting on what may be the easiest and most promising front. The administration is providing massive military and other aid to help Colombia and other Andean nations stop coca growing, processing and trafficking, but experts say the chemicals needed to refine cocaine from coca leaves continue to flow unhindered to drug labs. Each country involved blames another for the problem. [continues 1091 words]
Brazilian'S Treatment Reflects Strict Laws Against Drug Trafficking, Inflexible Rules SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Among the men with weather-beaten faces who lined the peach-colored walls of the Arsenal da Esperanca shelter, waiting in the Friday afternoon sun for a free dinner and a bunk, was a frightened 22-year-old from Ohio. Many of the men are alcoholics, jobless or both. All of them are homeless. Joao Herbert had been deported to Brazil a day earlier by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) because he was caught selling a small amount of marijuana before his application to become an American citizen was processed. [continues 613 words]
Violence Abates As Drug Dealers Abide By Rules RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- A couple of months ago, police Maj. Antonio Carlos Carballo would never have ventured alone into the back alleys and concealed courtyards of the Cantagalo slum. The area, which sits on the side of a hill that rises above the city, was simply too dangerous for police officers. Cocaine and marijuana traffickers controlled who went where, and their lieutenants, young men armed with semiautomatic weapons, stalked the narrow alleys, handing out packets of drugs to child couriers and stern warnings to anyone stupid enough to get in their way. [continues 1077 words]
TABATINGA, Brazil -- Until recently, this town sitting on the corner of the frontiers of Brazil, Peru and Colombia was one of the most sleepy, remote and overlooked parts of the Amazon. But that was before the fighting upriver among army troops, guerrillas and paramilitary forces on Colombia's side of a largely unmarked, 1,021-mile border started to intensify. Suddenly, the Brazilian government is stepping up river patrols and air surveillance and destroying clandestine airstrips, driven by a concern that the $1.3 billion the United States has promised Colombia to bolster its army may further fuel the long war against drug traffickers and their guerrilla allies and send it spilling into Brazil. [continues 1037 words]
TABATINGA, Brazil - Until recently, this town on the corner of the frontiers of Brazil, Peru and Colombia was one of the most sleepy, remote and overlooked parts of the Amazon. But that was before the fighting upriver by army troops, guerrillas and paramilitary forces on Colombia's side of the 1,021-mile border started to intensify. Suddenly, the Brazilian government is stepping up river patrols and air surveillance and destroying clandestine airstrips, driven by a concern that the $1.3 billion the United States has promised Colombia to bolster its army may further fuel the long war against drug traffickers and their guerrilla allies and send it spilling into Brazil. [continues 1579 words]
MANAUS, Brazil (AP) -- Explosions rocked the morning stillness, and pink smoke billowed over the beachhead on the Amazon tributary. Brazilian marines in black swooped down from helicopters and stormed up the sand, machine guns crackling. On a bluff above, military officers nodded their approval. If the Amazon ever is invaded, said a voice over a loudspeaker, Brazil will be ready. The show last week was for the benefit of defense ministers from around the Americas who met in this Amazon jungle city. As nations in the region debate the impact on them of Colombia's massive anti-drug plan, war games have taken on a new edge. [continues 384 words]
Defense Ministers Fear The Battle Against Traffickers May Spill Over MANAUS, Brazil -- U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen promised Latin American defense ministers Tuesday that Colombia's expanding drug war would not prove to be another quagmire like Vietnam. But in interviews, defense leaders from countries bordering Colombia said they feared that they would suffer escalating cross-border movements of Colombian drug traffickers and the guerrillas that thrive on protecting them. Speaking to a summit of 30 defense ministers from Western Hemisphere countries, Cohen stressed that Plan Colombia, a $7.5 billion international anti-drug effort that includes $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid to Colombia this year, is essentially a training and equipping mission. It is not, he insisted, the first stage of an eventual U.S. military intervention. [continues 549 words]
MANAUS, Brazil - The United States has rebuked South America for failing to support Colombia's planned military offensive against drug producers, amid fears that the conflict will spill over the border. In a private meeting Wednesday with defense ministers from the region, U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense James Bodner said the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia would go ahead with or without their support. "He complained about the lack of solidarity by South America, and he laid it on heavy," said Rep. Joao Herrmann Neto of Brazil's House Foreign Relations Committee, who attended the meeting. [continues 317 words]
Colombian Rebels Pushing Into Neighboring Countries MANAUS, Brazil - With Colombian guerrillas and drug traffickers threatening to destabilize the entire region, Western Hemisphere defense ministers gathered in northern Brazil this week to discuss the possibility of a more coordinated military response. But to the apparent chagrin of U.S. and Colombian officials, few of the ministers actually want to address the main problem: At Colombia's borders, leftist rebels are expanding their operations into neighboring countries and prompting one of the most massive military mobilizations the region has seen in decades. [continues 1424 words]
They were told that a U.S. role would be limited and that the conflict would not become another Vietnam. MANAUS, Brazil - U.S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen promised Latin American defense ministers yesterday that Colombia's expanding drug war would not prove to be another quagmire like Vietnam. But in interviews, defense leaders from countries bordering Colombia said they feared they would suffer escalating cross-border movements of Colombian drug traffickers and the guerrillas that thrive on protecting them. [continues 548 words]
Inside Brazil
