International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 20

Territorial and Corrosive: The “jogo do bicho” (Animal Game) and Organized Crime in Brazil
Drummond. 29 However, it was not easy for him to become one of the Bicheiros. As
is the norm in all mafia organizations, Guimarães had to prove his daring, toughness,
and intelligence before being accepted. He succeeded thanks to one of the
most powerful barons of the day, Angelo Maria Longa, nicknamed “Tio Patinhas,”
the Portuguese name for the Disney character Scrooge McDuck.
Guimarães was introduced to Tio Patinhas by Euclides Nascimento, a criminal
investigation officer in Rio’s judicial police force. Nascimento was the boast of
the elite corps of carioca police that was established in 1969, and founder of the
“Death Squad” that liquidated left-wing militants on the orders of the military. In
1971, Tio Patinhas had two problems that Guimarães could solve. Firstly, one of
his associates owed him money. The solution gave Guimarães access to the animal
game: Tio Patinhas sold him the banks belonging to the debtor, for the price
of the debt. Secondly, Tio Patinhas wanted to put an end to extortion by corrupt
members of the military in relation to the Bicheiros’ contraband network. It was
no coincidence that this racket depended on Guimarães. Why get into a fight with
these crooked officers? The Bicheiros preferred to offer them a partnership.
Guimarães, who knew his days in the army were numbered, decided to join
the criminal fraternity. His ambition led him to dispose of one of Tio Patinhas’
associates so that he could move up the organization and increase the territory he
controlled. Despite Capitão Guimarães’ violence, Tio Patinhas admired his way of
doing things.
The fact was that Capitão Guimarães brought military savoir-faire to the
management of the animal game. In particular, he introduced a proper business
management system, thus initiating the synthesis between the business model and
the mafia model described by Paulo Baltazar. 30 For a long time, the Bicheiros had
run things in a rudimentary fashion based on “gentlemen’s agreement.” With the
advent of Guimarães, management, accounting, and financial management were
brought in and associated processes were dematerialized. The cupola increasingly
resembled a military headquarters and the “old” bicheiros were won over. A
few years later, Guimarães became an heir to Tio Patinhas and one of the animal
game’s capi.
If the advent of Capitão Guimarães was a sign of modernity, it nevertheless
plunged the animal game into the unknown. Guimarães’ connections with
the hard men of the military regime were only one example of the dubious links
between the Bicheiros and the military’s repression of the left-wing opposition.
The research conducted by Aloy Jupiara and Chico Otavio 31 underlines how
close Guimarães was to the regime’s thugs, as also noted in the final report of
the National Truth Commission (Comissão Nacional da Verdade, CNV). 32 The
29 So-called in memory of Baron de Drummond, the animal game’s founder.
30 José Paulo Baltazar Júnior, Crime Organizado e Proibição da Insuficiência (Porto Alegre:
Livraria do Advogado, 2010).
31 Aloy Jupiara and Chico Otavio, Os porões da contravenção.
32 Commissão Nacional da Verdade, accessed February 4, 2018, http://www.cnv.gov.br/
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