Sunday, January 10, 2021 | 6:05 a.m.
The Comando Vermelho (CV) is the oldest criminal group in Brazil and currently has ties in both Paraguay and Bolivia. When they were born, they engaged in minor crimes, but over time they also ventured into assaults, kidnappings and, mainly, drug trafficking.
As reconstructed by the Insight Crime agency, the origin of this organization occurred in 1969, after the union between common criminals and leftist militants held in the same prisons during the military dictatorship in Brazil between 1964 and 1985.
Over time, the group spread outside the walls and from there began to commit all kinds of crimes in order to provide money to the members who were still in prison. The second mission of those who had recovered their freedom, meanwhile, was to recruit new members.
This is how the organization began to take on such a scale that it expanded to other prisons in the country and during the 1980s they were viewed favorably by Colombian cartels at the height of the cocaine trade.
This new business in turn generated new missions and from there the CV also dedicated itself to creating gangs to seize territories for the sale of drugs.
At present, the ties of the CV were easily seen in Paraguay and even one of its alleged members has an open investigation in Argentina.
Marcelo “Piloto” Pinheiro, for example. Until 2017 he was one of the most wanted drug traffickers in Brazil, where at the time he was described as the second of the heads of the CV.
Although his operational area was Pedro Juan Caballero, the dangerous subject was finally arrested in the neighboring town of Encarnación. After that, he was imprisoned and killed a young woman to delay his extradition, although he did not succeed and since 2018 it is in Brazilian hands again.
Pilot even has a link to Missions. It is about a young missionary who fell in February 2019 at the Puerto Iguazú Airport. It was a mule that carried ecstasy to Europe and on his cell phone he had connections with the Brazilian criminal.
In Argentina, meanwhile, the person under investigation is Marino Divaldo Pinto Brum (53), nicknamed Maestro, Popeye, Patron or Max. The man is considered one of the largest drug dealers and launderers in Brazil, who is also attributed with links to the CV.
The newspaper La Nación reported that his arrest took place in 2017 in neighboring territory, but the Argentine Justice requested that he be tried for a local cause. It is that here it is suspected that he was the man behind the drug ranch with a landing strip included that worked in Santo Tomé (Corrientes) to traffic cocaine and that was disrupted in 2013 in the framework of the White Deer operation.
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Bala Na Cara, from the Lopes brothers to relations with Negro Rojas
Organized crime, from prisons to its signals in Misiones
The PCC monopolized drug trafficking in Paraguay with bullets and blood
The Comando Vermelho, the oldest criminal group in Brazil
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