Organized crime, bureaucratized

Brazilian organized crime investigators intercepted several interminable conference calls made by crime gangs, some of whose members were in prison, but were able to participate thanks to smuggled cellular phones. You'd think that being a crook would mean freedom from crushing bureaucracy, but you'd be wrong.

A Federal Police recording recently heard by Folha de Sao Paulo involves a 10-hour discussion between five members of the First Capital Command (PCC) gang. The conversation involved two inmates and three gang members based outside of the prison. According to the newspaper, the talk was all business: topics included trafficking drugs to Paraguay and Bolivia, and the distribution of marijuana and cocaine inside Brazil.

The call, recorded on February 10, 2011, was one of many recorded between October 2010 and May 2012 as part of an ongoing investigation known as Operation Leviatã, targeting organized crime in Sao Paulo. The Ministry of Justice, which is currently processing the recordings, said that on average such conference calls involve four gang members, although recordings illustrate that as many nine gang members have taken part in a single call.

Brazil Prison Gang Conducted 10-Hour Conference Call (via Making Light)

• [Michael Smith]

  First Capital Command (PCC)

  TLAs are always a bad sign.

• [robuluz]

  Wait until someone sets up a 180 minute powerpoint presentation. People will DIE. I’ve been pretty close to the edge there myself, on occassion.

• [Gerrit Vogel]

  I don’t see any bureaucracy there. Not enough filing papers, to much informal talking.

• [gwailo_joe]

  ‘If you can’t keep illegal drugs out of a maximum security prison: how can you hope to keep them out of a free society?’-a wise person

  “We can’t keep the phones out, but we can bug them bitches!”

• [Boundegar]

  I wonder if they need a Director of Leveraging Synergies?

• [gd23]

  It’s called organized crime for a reason

• [John Smith]

  You expect them to run a multi-million dollar business without talking business?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    It kind of highlights the fact that most businesses are actually run by the secretaries and administrative assistants while the executives talk about golf and drinking.

• [dsouto]

  Being a Brazilian im kind relieve you guys posted this and somewhat angry.
  Relived because this was the first time i noticed on the international media something about the violence wave involving PCC an São Paulo

  And Angry because what you guys posted is nothing out of ordinary in Brazil, so what the guys had cellphones in prison that’s common in Brazil.

  Just dig a Little deeper please and you guys will find out that there is a ongoing wave of violence targeting Police officer in São Paulo for About  two months now. that about a month ago police in São Paulo busted the “CIA” of PCC a place holding the Daily routine of a number of cops, that were target to be killed. That the PCC is offerring debt forgiveness to any one who owns them money and kill a cop. Actually if you afiliate with PCC, got busted, and used  PCC’S lawyer to get out o jail you were required to kill a cop to pay off the debt.

  About three weeks ago the Police Also  discovered that PCC’S is given incentives to all Afiliattes that are leaving the jail, something like $2,500 per affiliate in order for them to buy weapons and get right back to “Business”

  It may be shocking to americans,europeans etc.. that organized crime in Brazil  is using cellphones within jail. But ask any brazilian you guys may know they will say is common thing.

• [Daemonworks]

  Actually, I would expect criminal bureauracy to be even more crushing. Occasionally quite literally so.

• [peregrinus]

  Worryingly, it takes them 10 hours to talk through their strategies and gain consensus.

  When they get efficient and do this in the 17 minutes it should really take, things are gonna be bad for the rest of us.

• [Benya Crick]

  I think we’ve broken it:

  “Table ‘./insigh23_sp3/p0i9s_session’ is marked as crashed and should be repaired SQL=INSERT INTO `p0i9s_session` (`session_id`, `client_id`, `time`) VALUES (’58c963fe509b6b56cf911ca486563470′, 0, ’1354927705′)”