International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 22

Territorial and Corrosive: The “jogo do bicho” (Animal Game) and Organized Crime in Brazil
Guimarães thus became one of the most formidable mafiosi of Rio. His expulsion
from the army in 1981, followed by the end of the regime, changed nothing:
neither his status nor the system. Instead, at the end of the eighties, Guimarães
expanded his territory to other states in Brazil and developed alliances with other
criminal groups so as to assert his supremacy. 35
When the military regime came to an end and its repressive apparatus was
dismantled, some members of the military and police were forced into unemployment:
all they could do was to work for the Bicheiros. Ex-spies and policemen
carried on working undercover, for the sole benefit of the game’s mafia.
It was also in 1981 that another capo appeared in the news. Anísio Abrahão
David, 36 the bicheiro who controls the bicho in the Baixada Fluminense region 37
and is president of the Beija-Flor, one of the most famous Samba schools, was
accused of abducting and killing Misaque José Marques and Luiz Carlos Jatobá.
According to the news reports, they were taken away by the police on the orders of
Anísio for having broken into the house he owned in the area and stolen jewelry
and cash. The judicial investigation revealed a more complex story: it turned out
that Misaque had witnessed an abduction carried out by the secret police, whose
prey was the ex-brigadier Júlio Gonçalves Martins Leitão, implicated in drug trafficking.
Misaque had informed the public prosecutor and had thus become a target
for corrupt agents of the state. Anísio and five policemen were arrested, but in
the end only three of them were sentenced. Anísio was found not guilty.
In August 1991, during the investigation into the murder of Eliana Müller,
Anísio’s ex-wife, and her new partner, the judiciary seized a letter in which Eliana,
who was under the threat of death, disclosed Anísio’s crimes, including his involvement
in the Misaque-Jatobá affair. It was her own father and brother who murdered
Eliana, after Anísio sacked them from the Beija-Flor samba school, where
he was president, as revenge against his ex-wife. The trial took place in Nilópolis
and needless to say Anísio was not even put under investigation.
At the time, Hélio Luz, chief of the Baixada Fluminense judicial police, told
the carioca press that neither police nor prosecutors could take action against
Anísio, because his influence over the local police and judiciary gave him a sort of
immunity. Hélio Luz and the state chief of police, Nilo Batista, attempted to take the
case outside the jurisdiction of Nilópolis, but it was tried there nonetheless. Eliana’s
father was acquitted but her brother was sentenced to twenty-four years in jail.
35 The Marselha operation, conducted by the federal police in 1989 in the state of Espírito Santo,
revealed the connection between the carioca Bicheiros and the band of professional assassins
known as Scuderie le Cocq, led by police chief Cláudio Guerra, a former agent of the repression,
and the bicheiro José Carlos Gratz, who was elected deputy for the State of Espírito Santo
some years later.
36 Aloy Jupiara and Chico Otavio, Os porões da contravenção, chap. 5, 30-33.
37 The Baixada Fluminense (with a population of almost three million) is in the west of the State
of Rio and includes the towns of Nilópolis, Nova Iguaçu, Belford Roxo, Duque de Caxias,
Magé, and Mesquita.
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