International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 21

International Journal on Criminology
Commission, established by law no. 12528/2011, set out to reveal the true history
of military repression under the dictatorship and confirmed that the military
government and its “men of the shadows” used torture and murder to quash the
opposition, resulting in the disappearance of 434 people. 33
According to statements made to the CNV in February 2014 by Colonel
Paulo Malhães, 34 previously a member of the Army Information Center (Centro
de Informações do Exército, CIE), Capitão Guimarães ordered a series of assassinations
in Niterói, near Rio de Janeiro, as soon as he joined the Bicheiros. This was
so that he could gain control over the animal game in the region, while benefiting
from the protection afforded by the regime and the police. Among his contacts
was Colonel Freddie Perdigão Pereira, an officer and member of military intelligence,
considered to be one of the regime’s most brutal members. The friendship
between Guimarães and Freddie exposed the relations between officials and organized
crime. For example, when the military regime ended, Freddie Perdigão
Pereira became chief of security for the Bicheiros. By now retired, he managed the
security of transportation companies linked with the Bicheiros, as well as personal
security for the capi.
Guimarães was also close to Colonel Ary de Aguiar Freire, an intelligence
officer, who was accused of having mounted a bomb attack in Rio on April 30,
1981: a booby-trapped vehicle exploded in front of the Riocentro convention center
where a concert was being held for an audience of twenty thousand people.
There were two victims, whose identities were swiftly revealed: military officers
linked to the intelligence service. But the Military Justice Department found no
culprit and closed the case without taking further action. A Brazilian approach to
implementing a “strategy of tension,” it seems.
This attack, famous in Brazil, was denounced as a failed attempt by the military
to convince Brazilians of the dangers of the radical left—and for years the
military hid the truth. In 1985, a judicial inquiry revealed another case linking the
military intelligence services to Guimarães. Behind the attempt to kill the Brazilian
journalist Alexandre Von Baumgarten, lay an intelligence operation, “Operation
Dragon,” and that Colonel Malhães, Colonel Aguiar, Colonel Ary Pereira, Capitão
Guimarães, and Sergeant Roberto Fábio had been involved. Despite the evidence,
the case was dismissed by the military justice system.
This episode shows that Capitão Guimarães did not become part of the hierarchy
of crime by chance. His position as both a member of the military and a
criminal was as useful to corrupt officials as it was to the Bicheiros. Clearly, many
of the Bicheiros’ employees were in fact potential military intelligence agents. All
the rumors circulating in the streets of Rio about the game’s network reached the
ears of the repressive regime.
33 Commissão Nacional da Verdade, Report, December 2014, Vol. 1: 8. Accessed February 4,
2018, http://www.cnv.gov.br/images/pdf/relatorio/volume_1_digital.pdf
34 Paulo Malhães (17/04/1938 – 25/04/2014) confessed to participating in acts of torture and
assassinations during the military regime.
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