Manaus buy cocaine

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Manaus buy cocaine

When Mauro Antony leaves home each morning the Fera leave with him. When he pops out for lunch, the Fera go too. And when he drives to the gym or the courthouse where he works, the Fera, as ever, are there. The Fera are Manaus's special rescue and assault team — a group of elite police operatives who keep order in this sweltering jungle city. Mauro Antony, a cauliflower-eared, jujitsu fighting year-old, is an Amazon anti-narcotics judge who enjoys their hour protection for one simple reason: in these parts many would prefer him dead. I've been threatened. After one hearing I was told I would be killed. But it doesn't worry me. I have great faith and I put my work first. You can't be a judge if you are afraid of judging. Threats to Amazon law enforcement officials and narco-judges are real. One of the judge's cousins was recently targeted with a bomb, apparently a reaction against his relative's firm stance against local mafiosi. Four Peruvian narco-traffickers — allegedly working for the Amazonian drug kingpin Jair Ardela Michue — opened fire on the agents, riddling their boat, and bodies, with high-calibre bullets. It was the first attack of its kind on Brazilian soil. At least half a dozen Manaus law enforcement officers and prosecutors currently receive round the clock attention from the Fera — black-clad, balaclava-hooded operatives whose logo is a skull skewered on two daggers and a rifle. Is Thomaz Vasconcellos, Manaus's stocky but affable intelligence secretary, afraid of being assassinated? Divanilson Cavalcanti, a year-old civil police chief, is equally frank. Not even when I go to the bathroom. They went to my house. We had to move house. We changed our habits exactly so that our family could live in peace,' he says, swiftly correcting himself: 'Apparent peace. Others are less forthcoming. Weeks of emails and telephone conversations with one veteran underworld observer, who has also received death threats, resulted in an edgy minute interview, conducted in a half-whisper while stomping around a crowded shopping mall. Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, is a major tourist destination for khaki-wearing nature enthusiasts and one of the host cities for the World Cup. Hemmed in on all sides by thick rainforest, it is located over 2, miles 4,km north-west of Rio de Janeiro. Yet for all its isolation Amazonas is umbilically connected to Rio's conflict-ridden slums. Much of the cocaine sold in Rio is said to arrive through Tabatinga, a smuggling mecca lost on Brazil's tri-border with Peru and Colombia, around miles upriver from Manaus. Tabatinga's strategic importance to traffickers has turned Manaus, through which the drugs pass on their way south, into a centre for drug-related crime and an HQ for the region's mafia. Amazonas's federal police had seized at least three tons of pure cocaine this year alone, he pointed out. Sometimes as much as kg or kg. The profits are huge. Nothing else provides such high profits. Rio's drug conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the s; in Manaus the drug trade is also taking its toll. A growing local market for cocaine has triggered a rise in homicides. The day before the Guardian's interview with Nunes, the corpse of a year-old girl was dumped on the city's outskirts. Her body was swaddled in plastic bags; her hands bound with a piece of washing-line. She wore a bright yellow Brazil football jersey. Off the record, police suggested Carla Ferreira de Abreu had been murdered because her boyfriend, 14, failed to pay off a drug debt. Amazon anti-narcotics judge Mauro Antony, with his hour security detail from the elite Fera squad, in Manaus. Photograph: Rodrigo Baleia. This article is more than 13 years old. Growing local market for cocaine triggers rise in killings in Manaus, more than 2, miles north-west of Rio de Janeiro. Explore more on these topics Brazil Drugs trade WikiLeaks news. Reuse this content. Comments … Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion. Most viewed.

Drug war consumes Brazil’s Amazonian capital

Manaus buy cocaine

The NZZ visits a region plagued by drug smuggling. Brazil's special military police unit for the Amazon region was founded 22 years ago. The elite force was tasked with putting a stop to bank robbers in Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas. At that time, the thieves were blowing up a string of ATMs — sometimes several a week. That hardly ever happens anymore, says Major Jackson, commander of the special unit. The year-old is sitting behind his desk in the ice-cold, air-conditioned office, in full gear. He is wearing a bulletproof vest, a pistol and two magazines, while handcuffs are dangling from his belt, and a machete is strapped to his leg. Today, the members of the unit — 20 of whom are women — are mainly focused on fighting drug trafficking. Confrontations with criminals have reached a completely different level in just a few years, the battalion chief says. Today they use explosives, hand grenades and machine pistols. The special unit is based at a barrackslike site not far from the center of Manaus. These are all Brazilian drug gangs with different origins. Every child in Manaus knows these acronyms. The drug gangs are a constant presence in this city of 2. They rule over neighborhoods and prisons. Sometimes they fight each other mercilessly, then they come to an agreement for a while. They are all share the ambition to become internationally active mafia groups. Some of them are already well along the way. In the Amazon region, they are all involved in the rapidly growing drug smuggling trade. This is an area one-and-a-half times the size of Europe. The gangs transport drugs from Colombia and Peru — mainly cocaine, but also skunk, a particularly strong form of marijuana. A large proportion of this goes to Europe, the world's fastest-growing cocaine market. The rivers in the Amazon region have become key smuggling routes to the Atlantic ports. The gangs also supply local markets in Brazil and its neighboring countries via the Amazon region. This has far-reaching consequences. In the U. World Drug Report published in , experts dedicated an entire chapter to the connection between the growing presence of organized crime and the destruction of the rainforest. The primary conclusion was that the drug gangs' influence is accelerating the forest's destruction. This is taking place on several levels. Organized crime groups are infiltrating state-level authorities. Their influence within local politics, official agencies and the judiciary is growing. It is undermining the state's sovereignty in the Amazon region. Oversight entities are losing their ability to act effectively. All illegal actors are benefiting from this: drug gangs as well as timber smugglers and gold prospectors. At the same time, organized crime groups are laundering their drug money with other illegal or semi-legal activities directly in the Amazon region. This too is accelerating the destruction of the rainforest, for instance by financing sawmills, cattle ranches or gold claims, or even through direct investments in slash-and-burn agriculture and new grazing land. Wherever the money goes, it is steadily increasing pressure on the rainforest. For example, authorities such as the customs services, anti-drug units, the police and the military are all acting on their own and in an uncoordinated manner against criminal groups. Moreover, the authors note, national and multinational authorities and nongovernmental organizations focus tightly on their own goals when it comes to social issues and the protection of the environment and Indigenous peoples. The experts argue that this «siloed» thinking must be overcome — in rainforest protection efforts as well as in the fight against organized crime. Such a change in practices would also be in Europe's interest because the Amazon forest absorbs large amounts of carbon dioxide. Keeping the rainforest intact is important for the global climate. Moreover, the growing consumption of cocaine in Europe means that drug cartels, with their vast profits, are becoming increasingly violent in Europe, and even infiltrating state institutions there. The speed with which the drug gangs have spread though the Amazon region has been startling. According to an investigation by the Brazilian Forum for Security, of the municipalities in Brazil's state of Amazonas are controlled by organized crime groups. Around 26 million people live in the Amazon region, half of them in areas where the mafia is in charge. Aiala Colares Couto is a geographer and expert on the spread of drug clans in the Amazon region. He says that drug gangs took advantage of the state power vacuum in the Amazon region under the previous president, Jair Bolsonaro, to establish themselves there. The right-wing populist was not interested in protecting the rainforest. Instead, he supported farmers, prospectors and loggers, his constituents. Within the Amazon region, drug gangs take advantage of existing illegal infrastructure, often created by gold miners: landing strips for airplanes, mobile gas stations for speedboats and supply lines for food. They often press local indigenous people or other people living along the river into service as staff, either by threatening them or simply by paying them to work. At the same time, cartels also invest their drug money directly in illegal activities in the region. They finance gold prospectors, fishing operations, loggers and animal smugglers. Criminal activities in the Amazon region have exploded. The state of Amazonas has one of the highest murder rates in Brazil. However, drug gangs are also laundering their money in the legal economy: in cattle farms and soybean cultivation, in real estate, supermarkets, gas stations, and beauty salons. Gang associates are being elected to municipal councils and are sitting in local oversight agencies, and are thus gaining more and more influence in the state. They decide who gets the contracts for waste disposal, school meals or public transportation — all activities that are useful for laundering drug money. The arm of the drug cartels even reaches as far as the country's capital, Brasilia. Recently, year-old Luciane Barbosa took part in an event at the Ministry of Human Rights there, protesting torture. She appeared as the president of an institute advocating freedom for the Amazon. There are numerous photos of Barbosa with ministers and legislators. Barbosa has been married for 11 years to the head of Comando Vermelho, the most powerful drug cartel in the Amazon region. She herself was sentenced to 10 years in prison for money laundering, but has filed an appeal. The public prosecutor's office is convinced that she is the powerful first lady of the drug trade in the Amazon region. As a transport hub, the city of Manaus is the center of the drug business in the Amazon region. Container ships travel there, 1, kilometers from the mouth of the Amazon, to unload their cargo — mainly electrical and machine parts. Drugs are often packed in between this cargo. In the dry season that lasts through the end of November, fewer boats can operate. Container traffic came almost to a complete standstill for several months last year. At such times, drug smugglers have to transport the goods through the city, he says. They are often discovered at roadside checkpoints. In , 12 tons of drugs were confiscated, he says. Shootouts are rare: If stopped, the smugglers know that they have already lost, he says. The special unit is widely feared within the criminal community, and relies on this deterrent effect. The entrance to Jackson's office is adorned with the unit's coat of arms as a wall relief made up of cartridge cases of all sizes. By telephone, he gives us an introduction to a special task force that is currently deployed on the rivers. The garrison on the outskirts of Manaus takes the image as its name «Base Caveira» or «Skull Base» and the coat of arms at the entrance is adorned with a skull. There are half a dozen of them on Lieutenant Adaumir's desk. The officer is polite, but reserved. As we talk, five of his employees stand around him in sportswear with their arms folded. They look distrustfully at us as we speak, saying little. After a while, they thaw out a little and talk about their work. Drug smugglers have made the hundreds of tributaries between the two rivers their terrain. The special officers talk about rivers, hamlets and flood plains just like their colleagues in the cities talk about streets, villages and parks. Smugglers use speedboats to travel swiftly down the rivers at night without lights. Boats with horsepower outboard motors travel at up to 60 kilometers per hour. It takes them three days to get from the border to Manaus. Sometimes they pack oversized rubber dinghies with up to a ton of drugs and use a dozen engines to propel them. In such cases, the journey to Manaus takes much longer. The smugglers are always armed, the officers say. Footage of gunfights on rivers is circulating on the internet. These look like images from a war. During the day, smugglers hide in the branching waterways. They are sometimes supplied and supported by seaplanes that fly just above the river bed — and sometimes get stuck in the treetops. Over coffee, the agents later tell us that they are often on the road for weeks at a time, separated from their families. There is only one base upstream. They are usually dropped off by helicopter, and then have to fend for themselves in the rainforest. It's a risky job, they say. Plaques at the entrance of their headquarters memorialize officers killed in the line of duty. When the rivers are dry, the special unit hunts pirates. These are bandits who specialize in intercepting the cartels' drug boats on the river. When there are hardly any transports on the rivers because of the drought, these criminals begin to attack villages and settlers along the rivers, terrorizing the populations there. Commanders of these special units are under no illusions that they will be able to stop drug smuggling in the Amazon region one day. Global reporting from Switzerland. Independent since The NZZ is one of the preeminent news sources in the German-speaking world, with a tradition of independent, high-quality journalism reaching back over years. With an industry-leading network of foreign correspondents and a team of expert editors in Zurich, we offer fact-based analyses, in-depth investigations and top-notch reporting: a global view with a fresh perspective. Sign up for our free newsletter or follow us on Twitter , Facebook or WhatsApp. Behind the Headlines. Drug mafias controlling large parts of the Amazon region, accelerating deforestation. A large raft run aground on the dry bed of the Amazon River near Manaus due to unusual drought conditions. Photo taken last October. Security forces arrest two suspected criminals on the street in Manaus. Brazilian soldiers patrol the Amazon on the border with Colombia. International View. Inside Europe. Eflamm Mordrelle October 17, 6 min. Manfred Rist October 17, 8 min.

Manaus buy cocaine