RIO DE JANEIRO - Every evening at 6, a chant echoes through the cellblocks of Bangu I, the city's largest maximum-security prison. It is the voice of the drug trade and its largest syndicate, the Red Command. "Comando Vermelho!" the convicted "vapor men" and "mules" yell in Portuguese. "For justice and freedom! To the streets now!" In this city's favelas, or slums, the soldiers of the drug trade call themselves "the movement." That term, like the chant inside Bangu I, hints at the quasi-political ideas now circulating among the Red Command and the city's other dominant drug syndicates, the Third Command and the Friends of Friends. [continues 1270 words]
Sao Paulo Newspaper Claims that Marijuana Causes "Insomnia, Nausea, Muscular Pain," and "Loss of Appetite" RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL: As the country of Brazil moves closer to more humane and democratic drug policy, the vested interests - led by the "drug treatment" lobby - are trying desperately to pull it back to the Stone Age. The spear used by these Neanderthals of drug policy comes in the form of knowingly false statements about marijuana users and efforts to corral them into "treatment." Even as hundreds of drug war critics met in Rio de Janeiro at the event co-sponsored by Narco News last Friday, a U.S. government-funded advocate of "marijuana treatment" had arrived in Sao Paulo to promote his fledgling industry: "Treatment" for marijuana smokers. [continues 2443 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO - Ten police chiefs lost their jobs and two officers lost their lives yesterday in Brazil's spreading war with drug barons which has killed at least 100 in two weeks. Turf battles that until recently took lives in the shanty towns around Rio de Janeiro have spilled over into the tourist city's neighbourhoods. In the face of unprecedented drug-related violence, Rio de Janeiro's Public Safety Secretary, Anthony Garotinho, replaced 10 battalion commanders of the military police. Garotinho announced on Saturday that the occupation of several shanty towns, controlled by drug kingpins and where the fighting is concentrated, would continue indefinitely. [end]
Drug crimes strike in Rio de Janeiro By Kevin G. Hall Washington Bureau RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - After drug traffickers sprayed university students with gunfire last week, Rio de Janeiro's top cop made it official: Drug violence in Rio, he said, is "out of control." Drug gangs, who used to confine their violence to the slums they live in, also torched several more public buses last week. They fought pitched gunbattles in daylight against police along the main thoroughfares linking the airport to Rio's storied Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. [continues 413 words]
Police Are Not 'Prepared To Fight This' RIO DE JANEIRO - After drug traffickers sprayed university students with gunfire this week, Rio de Janeiro's top cop made it official: Drug violence in Rio, he said, is "out of control." Drug gangs, who used to confine their violence to the slums they live in, also torched several more public buses this week. They fought pitched gun battles in daylight against police along the main thoroughfares linking the airport to Rio's famous Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. In recent months, they also have attacked government buildings and shopping malls. [continues 652 words]
Slum Rio das Pedras Is Seen as Urban Utopia By Residents Who Cheer Lack of Crime, Drugs RIO DE JANEIRO -- For Maria de Lourdes Luna, home is a one-room hut shared with five relatives. The stench of sewage fills the alleys, and refuse gushes past the shanties from an open ditch after a hard rain. Yet for her and many others, the slum of Rio das Pedras is an urban utopia -- one of the few Brazilian shantytowns, or favelas, not tormented by drugs and drug-related violence. Children fly kites and play ball free from fear of ricocheting bullets. People sleep with doors unlocked and windows ajar. Even petty crime is rare. [continues 1287 words]
RIO de JANEIRO - THE long-standing war between municipal authorities here and the drug trafficking gangs that control many of the city's teeming squatter slums has escalated to the point that tourist sites are affected. Early this month, gunmen fired at the train station where visitors leave for the statue of Christ atop Corcovado Mountain, one day after a bomb went off just outside a luxury hotel in Copacabana. Both incidents took place in predawn hours and no visitors or local residents were injured, leading city officials to argue that the attacks were intended not to disrupt tourism but to intimidate them into easing up on their campaign to crush powerful criminal organizations. But threats have also been made against Sugar Loaf, another tourist site, famous for its spectacular views, and shopping malls, police stations and buses have been attacked. [continues 746 words]
From a Salon in Rio de Janeiro, the Future is Being Born MARCH 25, 2003; RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL: Thirty-five people gather from distant corners of this giant country in a hotel in Copacabana; twenty-three of them are women, the faces shine an authentic prism of hues, some of them pale but not pallid, and most of them, mulatto to black. In a sharp contrast with the seats of power in this and other American nations, there is not a suit or tie to be seen in the room, nor a power skirt, nor a Rolex watch. This room reflects a more accurate photo of the majority. [continues 1737 words]
Celia Szterenfeld's "Pedagogy of Harm Reduction" Takes Root Finally, someone can answer my question of 15 months ago: What ever happened to that law to decriminalize drug use that was proposed by the administration of then-president of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso? The National Congress, in January 2002, amended (read: gutted) the legislation in mysterious ways, but no commercial press agency reported what happened to the bill that almost, but did not, make history. Here on the Narco News Team, we've been asking about that law for 15 months... and nobody knew, not even the activists or experts in Brazilian drug policy we interviewed knew... [continues 2258 words]
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) - Brazil's president promised Friday to help Colombia in its fight against drug traffickers and guerrillas, labeling the insurgents "terrorists." President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pledged the assistance at the end of a five-hour visit from his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe. "Brazil has committed itself to support Colombia in its fight against drug traffickers and terrorists," Silva said. Silva's labeling the guerrillas terrorists came a day after the U.S. ambassador to Ecuador said nations neighboring Colombia could help Uribe by calling the FARC group terrorists because that's "what they are." [continues 262 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Army tanks, 3,000 troops and 35,000 police officers patrolled Rio's streets Sunday for the start of the city's glittering Carnival parades. Security was tight after four people were killed and dozens of cars and buses torched last week in violence blamed on drug gangs. But there have been few reports of violence involving the revelers themselves. One exception was an American tourist shot in the leg Sunday in a traffic dispute. He was not killed. Many nations celebrate Carnival, especially in Latin America. But Rio's parades are the most famous. The city's tourism authorities said they expect 400,000 out-of-town visitors for this year's Carnival. [end]
Brazil's most notorious drug lord was moved Thursday to a prison far from Rio de Janeiro after gang members -- allegedly on his orders -- terrorized the city ahead of today's opening of its world-famous Carnival. Officials announced that 3,000 soldiers would be sent to Rio to help keep peace during Carnival after a week of violence. Luiz Fernando da Costa was taken from a Rio penitentiary Thursday and sent to Sao Paulo state, then driven to the Presidente Bernardes prison, which is considered Brazil's most secure. [end]
New Leader Faces Battle On Reform RIO DE JANEIRO -- The killing usually starts after sunset or in wee hours of the morning, when gunfire turns a mass of decayed housing units in Complexo da Mare into a war zone. Drug traffickers from three factions are waging a daily fight for control of the slum. No one is safe--not the families who crouch fearfully in their homes, not even participants in an internationally respected youth program run by Rio activist Yvonne de Mello. [continues 1102 words]
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil - Leonilda Zurita railed against the U.S. yesterday for backing Bolivia's efforts to curb cultivation of the coca plant - the source of cocaine but also chewed by poor Bolivians to ease hunger. Zurita, a Quecha Indian who was handing coca leaves to anyone who approached her, was among thousands of anti-globalization activists at the third World Social Forum, a counterpoint to the concurrent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Though they came from around the world, the activists were united in their anger at what they call "neoliberalism," or the perceived U.S. control over the world through free-market economics, liberal trade and the breakdown of national borders. [continues 237 words]
For the four officers, it was a routine patrol. Their police car was cruising along one of the main roads in Rio de Janeiro's North Zone last week when it was ambushed.Thirty men armed with shotguns, pistols, rifles, submachine-guns and grenades attacked the car, killing two of the policemen and, by mistake, a 51-year-old woman in a passing bus. The ages of the gang members, one of the city's most feared drug factions, said police, were between 10 and 25. [continues 819 words]
Gangs Control The Warren-Like Slums At least 12 people have been killed in a gun battle between police and suspected drug traffickers in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, authorities say. A policeman died in the shooting in a slum of the city, the Secretary for Public Safety in Rio, Colonel Josias Quintal, said. He said the shooting began when officers tried to arrest suspected drug traffickers. More than 250 policemen took part in the operation. It was not immediately clear if any one was arrested or if any drugs or arms were apprehended. [continues 225 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO - AS voters here pick Brazil's president next Sunday, they can expect to have more than the usual election observers watching them. The governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro has asked that the soldiers who patrolled the streets here during the first round of voting on Oct. 6 be deployed again to protect citizens from the threat that criminal gangs will interfere with the election. Gov. Benedita da Silva wants to prevent a repetition of the "Black Monday" of Sept. 30, when stores, schools, banks, offices and markets in this city of 5.8 million were forced to close on the order of jailed gang leaders unhappy with their living conditions. Gang members also burned buses, paralyzing public transport. [continues 807 words]
In a show of strength said to be aimed at securing better living conditions for its imprisoned leader, Rio de Janeiro's most powerful criminal gang has forced schools, businesses and public transport throughout the city to shut down. Followers of Fernandinho Beira-Mar, a drug lord with ties to Colombian guerrillas who has been indicted in the United States, have issued such orders before in slum areas they control, but this action, which was successful despite police efforts to encourage shops to stay open, also affected exclusive neighborhoods, including Ipanema and Copacabana. [end]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Stores and schools across Rio closed Monday, reportedly on orders from the city's most powerful crime gang to protest prison conditions of its jailed leader. Police increased street patrols and no violence was reported, but fear shut down much of the city. From trendy Ipanema beach to the city's poor north side, scores of shops didn't open or quickly closed. The Estacio de Sa college let out classes and canceled scheduled exams because students and teachers stayed home. [continues 253 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - The front-runner in Brazil's presidential race indicated Thursday he would not change current policy of opposing U.S. financial and military aid to Colombia in its war on drugs. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the leftist Workers Party is far ahead of the other candidates in the polls. If his numbers improve only slightly, he could win in the first round on Oct. 6 without a run-off Oct. 27. In an interview with O Globo television, Lula suggested he would not change the country's foreign policy. Outgoing President Fernando Henrique Cardoso opposes U.S. financial and military aid in Colombia's drug-trafficking efforts. [continues 136 words]
After a siege of more than a week, the police in Rio de Janeiro have arrested a powerful gang leader, Elias Pereira da Silva, and charged him with the murder of Tim Lopes, a prominent television reporter. Mr. Lopes was kidnapped and killed early in June, just as he was beginning an investigation of drug trafficking in slum neighborhoods controlled by the gang. His death became a symbol of the government's inability to control criminal groups, generating street demonstrations and demands for a reorganization of the police. [end]
RIO DE JANEIRO - On a steep hillside, an organization is generously maintaining the local soccer field, donating cash to help operate day- care centers, providing cheap transit, staging musical extravaganzas, offering medicine and food to needy families and assuring the security of the more than 250,000 residents packed into the massive Rocinha ghetto. There are many such organizations operating throughout Brazil. In Rocinha, as in other favelas, the haphazardly constructed slums across Rio and other big cities in Latin America's largest nation, the organizations are known as "the Parallel Power" - the new euphemism for Brazil's increasingly omnipotent drug lords. [continues 885 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO -- On a steep hillside, an organization is generously maintaining the local soccer field, donating cash to help operate day-care centers, providing cheap transit, staging musical extravaganzas, offering medicine and food to needy families and assuring the security of the more than 250,000 residents packed into the massive Rocinha ghetto. There are many such organizations operating throughout Brazil. In Rocinha, as in other favelas, the haphazardly constructed slums across Rio and other big cities in Latin America's largest nation, the organizations are known as "the Parallel Power" -- the new euphemism for Brazil's increasingly omnipotent drug lords. [continues 1367 words]
Jailed gang leader seizes control of prison, kills rival inmates RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - When Brazilian authorities locked up Luiz Fernando da Costa in a top-security prison last year, the notorious drug lord seemed to be out of circulation at last. Instead, the confinement barely slowed him down. From his cell in Rio de Janeiro's Bangu I Penitentiary, da Costa has continued to run his drug empire, command gang wars and executions, even negotiate arms deals by mobile phone. [continues 471 words]
Violence: Drug Lord Took Over Parts Of The Facility And Killed Rival Bosses, Officials Say. RIO DE JANEIRO -- One of Brazil's most notorious drug lords surrendered Thursday after taking over parts of a maximum-security prison and killing four rival crime bosses, officials said. Luiz Fernando da Costa smiled widely and sang a tune before he and members of his Red Command crime syndicate released their hostages and turned in their weapons to authorities inside Rio's Bangu I penitentiary. [continues 631 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil--The crowning achievement of Rodrigo X's young life wasn't graduating from school or scoring a goal on the soccer field--it was throwing his first hand grenade. The 16-year-old is a combatant in this city not officially at war, but where hundreds of children and adolescents die each year from small-arms fire. ''I looked to the street and the police were coming,'' the teenage gang member told researchers. ''I started exchanging fire with them. I jumped over the wall and got close, then BOOM everything shook. It was the first time I threw a grenade. It was good.'' [continues 196 words]
VITORIA, Brazil - Its murder rate is higher than Colombia's, drug trafficking is flourishing, the central government is dithering and just recently a bomb exploded inside the local bar association. So it is hardly surprising that people here have begun referring to their city as "the Medellin of Brazil." Yet many of those responsible for the epidemic of violence and crime here in the capital of Espirito Santo State are themselves officially defenders of the law. According to police investigators and lawyers' and human rights groups, the remnants of the police death squads that once terrorized Brazil's big cities have migrated here and seized power in the state, and they are now operating under the banner of a shadowy group known as the Scuderie Detetive le Cocq, or Shield of Detective le Cocq. [continues 1133 words]
From the International Desk RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- The Brazilian directors of a controversial new film about Rio's drug culture were summoned Monday by city officials to be deposed on their relationship with a known drug kingpin who is depicted in their movie. "Cidade de Deus" has received rave reviews from audiences for its authentic representation of life in the Rio "favela" (slum) of the same name, where drug traffickers often operate with impunity and violence and killings are the norm. [continues 246 words]
MANAUS, Brazil - For as long as Brazil has been a nation, outlaws of every type, from gold smugglers and slave traders to drug traffickers and gun runners, have taken refuge in the Amazon, the world's largest jungle wilderness, secure in the knowledge that they could not be tracked down. As of Friday, though, that shelter is no longer guaranteed. A new American-financed, $1.4 billion system of radar and sensors has begun monitoring activity in a 1.9 million-square-mile area of trackless rain forest and rivers that is larger than half the continental United States. [continues 275 words]
MANAUS, Brazil, July 26 - For as long as Brazil has been a nation, outlaws of every type, from gold smugglers and slave traders to drug traffickers and gun runners, have taken refuge in the Amazon, the world's largest jungle wilderness, secure in the knowledge that they could not be tracked down. As of today, though, that shelter is no longer guaranteed. A new American-financed, $1.4 billion system of radars and sensors has begun monitoring activity in a 1.9-million-square-mile area of trackless rain forest and rivers that is larger than half the continental United States. [continues 916 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil unveiled a state-of-the-art radar system yesterday that is intended to help unlock the mysteries and economic potential of the vast Amazon region, as well as track down lawbreakers. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso flew to the jungle city of Manaus to inaugurate the Amazon Surveillance System, a $1.4 billion network of radar stations and computers built by defense contractor Raytheon Corp., based in Lexington, Mass. The system will monitor activity including illegal landing strips, climatic conditions, and soil composition in the world's largest wilderness. [continues 505 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Despite spending billions of dollars, the United States is losing ground in the South American drug war. Those billions were supposed to train police forces, whip soldiers into shape, spray crops with defoliants and teach farmers how to grow anything but coca plants. In Peru, coca-eradication efforts stopped July 2. In Bolivia, authorities last year had nearly ended the growing of coca leaves, which are refined to make cocaine. Now, farmers are back at it. In Colombia, the president-elect's vow to eliminate the nation's burgeoning coca crop has shrunk to a pledge to attack only industrial-size plots. [continues 776 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - A journalist on an investigative assignment is decapitated and dismembered. Prominent politicians are accused of ties to death squads. Warlords financed by drug money rule large swaths of territory. It sounds like Afghanistan or Pakistan, but it's happening in Brazil, a fragile democracy into which Americans have poured billions of dollars and considerable diplomatic effort. Both investments are now at risk from the lawlessness and the growing power of drug-financed gangs. Many Brazilians say theirs is a nation of two governments these days: an official one and a parallel state ruled by criminals. [continues 470 words]
More than a month after the disappearance of a crime reporter, Tim Lopes, caused a national outcry against drug lords and inept and corrupt police work, his charred remains were recovered from a clandestine cemetery. He vanished on June 2 while pursuing an undercover investigation into gangs that dominate the squatter slums of Rio de Janeiro and was reported to have been executed by a local drug boss nicknamed Elias the Madman, to shield his activities. [end]
Violence Out Of Control: Gangs Attack City Hall, Murder Journalist, Enslave Residents Of Shantytowns RIO DE JANEIRO - Drug-trafficking gangs attacked Rio's city hall this week, firing more than 200 automatic rifle blasts into one of the municipal complex's buildings in the downtown core during work hours. A few weeks ago, the remains of a high-profile investigative journalist were discovered in a shantytown, or favela, in the city's northern suburbs. Tim Lopes, a reporter for Globo TV was carrying a hidden camera while researching a story on drug trafficking and violence in one of the city's more than 500 shantytowns. When drug kingpins in the shantytown discovered what he was doing, he was brutally tortured and murdered. [continues 865 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO, June 27 - Gang leaders had taken control of the weekend funk dances in the neighborhood, selling drugs openly and forcing young girls to have sex with them. The police had been alerted but had done nothing, so the residents of the slum known as the Favela da Grota turned, like so many others here before them, to the crusading crime reporter Tim Lopes. Mr. Lopes was last seen on the night of June 2, on his way to one of the raucous dances. The charred remains of the camera he was carrying have been found, but Mr. Lopes never returned, and two gunmen for the drug lord who controls the neighborhood have horrified the city by boasting to reporters and police officers that he was kidnapped and killed on orders of their boss. [continues 906 words]
Rio De Janeiro - Put reason aside, for a moment, and imagine this: American students are taught that the Amazon should be taken away from Brazil and made into an "international reserve" under United Nations administration. United States Army special forces are training in Florida to seize control of that zone once it is established. And, to accelerate the process, Harvard University advocates the immediate dismemberment of Brazil. All of this, of course, is pure imagination. The Brazilian imagination. From birth, Brazilians are taught that "the Amazon is ours." But their government has never been able to exercise effective sovereignty over the region, which in any case remains an exotic mystery to most Brazilians. The result is a national paranoia: a conviction that outsiders - especially the United States, with its checkered history in Latin America - envy Brazil's ownership of the world's largest tropical forest and want it for themselves. [continues 843 words]
MANAUS · Towering above the treetops near the Amazon's winding Rio Negro, a gigantic spinning radar points skyward, obscuring a splendid view of puffy white clouds. In a control room miles away, technicians sit transfixed to computer screens, gathering and analyzing the information the radar collects. The radar is only one piece of a complex jigsaw puzzle of some of the most advanced surveillance technology that will attempt to provide an electronic view of the darkest reaches of the planet's largest and most mysterious rain forest. [continues 545 words]
BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil's first ever survey of drug use showed Wednesday the country's consumption of illegal substances is "not alarming," despite having some of the worst drug-related violence in the world, officials said. The study showed that 19.4% of Brazilians have tried an illegal drug at least once, putting Latin America's largest country well behind the United States where 38.9% of people say they have tried drugs, but above Chile with 17.1%. US government estimates, disputed by Brazilian authorities, have shown that between 40 and 50 tons of cocaine is consumed in Brazil a year, making it the world's second-largest consumer of cocaine, after the United States. [continues 272 words]
SAO PAULO, Brazil -- One of Brazil's most notorious drug lords bought a shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile from an arms dealer by telephone while serving time in a Rio maximum-security prison, Brazilian officials said. A federal police official said Tuesday that police took custody of the missile, which was found in the prison director's office, and have dismantled it. Federal authorities believe the director was involved in negotiations for the sale of the weapon, the official told UPI. [continues 366 words]
An undercover TV journalist reporting on crime and drugs in Rio de Janeiro's shantytowns was tortured and put to death with a sword by a drug lord who runs his territory like a medieval fiefdom, police said. Tim Lopes of Globo television was captured June 2 as he tried to infiltrate a dance party in northern Rio de Janeiro, where gangs sell drugs and stage illicit sex shows. Lopes, 50, was taken to a nearby shantytown, where he was shot in the feet, brutally beaten and killed by drug lord Elias Pereira da Silva, police said. Gang members then burned Lopes' body. [end]
Brazil: An undercover TV journalist reporting on crime and drugs in Rio de Janeiro's shantytowns was tortured and put to death with a sword by a drug lord who runs his territory like a medieval fiefdom, police said Monday. Tim Lopes of Globo television was captured June 2 as he tried to infiltrate a dance party in the Vila Cruzeiro shantytown where gangs sold drugs and staged illicit sex shows. Lopes, 50, was taken to a nearby shantytown, Favela da Grota, where he was shot in the feet, brutally beaten and killed with a Samurai-style sword by drug baron Elas Pereira da Silva, known as Elas Maluco, or Mad Elas, police said. Gang members then burned Lopes' body. Police confirmed details of the killing from two members of Silva's gang who were arrested Sunday. [end]
It was reported last week that the Brazilian legislature had passed and President Fernando Cardoso was ready to sign a bill that would keep small-time drug offenders out of prison (see this article.). But Cardoso, who had given the green light for the legislature to pass the 10-year-old reform bill in December, has now vetoed the bill's provisions that would have eased penalties, citing constitutional reasons. Cardoso did, however, sign provisions of the bill enhancing penalties for drug traffickers. [continues 598 words]
BRASILIA, Brazil, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso on Friday signed into law an anti-drugs bill aimed at cracking down on traffickers but rejected parts that would have eased penalties faced by users. Cardoso vetoed some 30 percent of the bill -- approved by Congress in September after 10 years of debate -- because it was unconstitutional, Alberto Cardoso, the president's top security adviser, told a news conference. Cardoso said the president was set to send another measure to Congress that would maintain the essence of the original bill that sought to keep drugs users out of jail by giving them alternative sentences such as community work. [continues 304 words]
Sweeping New Laws Are Based On The View That Drug Users Need Treatment, Not Criminal Punishment. RIO DE JANEIRO - On the continent that produces most of the world's cocaine and much of its heroin and marijuana, its largest country is softening punishment on recreational drug users. The Brazilian Congress adopted landmark legislation that substitutes alternative punishments such as community service and rehabilitation for custodial sentences. The government will now treat recreational drug users not as criminals, but as people in need of medical and psychological help. [continues 815 words]
BRASILIA, Brazil - Brazil's new anti-drug initiative, which involves tougher punishments for drug trafficking and softer penalties for consumption, was criticized by some political analysts on Thursday as underfunded and inadequate. "This is a parody of a policy, a badly made draft of what should be an anti-drug policy," said Judge Walter Maierovitch, Brazil's former anti-drug czar. Under current Brazilian law, someone caught smoking marijuana can receive the same penalties as someone caught with a pound of cocaine. A bill working its way through Congress would stiffen penalties for drug traffickers while handing drug users alternative sentences like community work. [continues 304 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - The poison on an arrow that paralyzes a wild beast in the jungle and a pill that can relax our tense muscles have something in common -- they both come from the curare plant discovered by Brazilian Indians. Now, the indigenous people of Brazil want this type of link between primitive hunting trick and modern pharmaceutical technology to be recognized as a property right that could bring much-needed cash to needy tribes, some of them on the brink of extinction. [continues 915 words]
Latin Nations Put New Emphasis On Fighting Operations RIO DE JANEIRO -- When Brazil and Bolivia announced recently that they had cracked a $260 million money laundering operation, the investigation was hailed as proof of a new commitment to stop an often-ignored crime that has flourished in a region where drug lords and corrupt politicians still hold considerable sway. Watchdog groups say that while money laundering remains a relatively unchallenged practice in Latin America, a wave of high-profile investigations like the Brazil-Bolivia cooperation, new regulations and tighter enforcement indicate that recent international scrutiny is forcing governments to take money laundering more seriously. [continues 643 words]
The Brazilian president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, has said he would authorize the shooting down of planes involved in terrorism, smuggling or drug trafficking. Mr Cardoso was speaking during a visit to the border with Colombia, a region where illegal airplanes have been involved in several incidents in the last years. A law approved by the Congress in 1998 allows the armed forces to shoot down airplanes within Brazilian airspace. But it needs further legislation before it can be implemented. [end]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Flour and sugar sold in Brazil don't always have them, but packages of cocaine offered by a notorious Rio de Janeiro drug gang are now showing up complete with bar codes and price tags. Police said on Friday they had confiscated 260 packets of cocaine in a shanty-town near Rio, each with a sticker identifying the product by code 0001 and bearing the name of the merchants and a slogan -- "Now, it's us." A roll of supermarket-style stickers was also confiscated. [continues 126 words]
Inside Brazil
