International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 26

Territorial and Corrosive: The “jogo do bicho” (Animal Game) and Organized Crime in Brazil
of corruption implicating both the carioca police and Rio politicians. Alvaro Lins,
who had in the meantime been elected to Congress, was arrested and accused of
running a network corrupting the top echelons of the state, including the former
governor, Anthony Garotinho, and his wife. The sixteen people involved were accused
of bribery, facilitating smuggling, criminal conspiracy, money laundering,
and the illegal operation of games of chance.
Operation “Furacão”
At dawn on April 13, 2007, the directorate of intelligence of the federal police
unleashed a wave of arrests targeting the barons of the animal game and everyone
associated with this vast mafia network. More than 600 federal police executed
around 100 search and arrest warrants for bicheiros, magistrates, Rio State police,
federal police, lawyers, and politicians. Operation Furacão (or Hurricane) was the
most crippling blow that the justice system had delivered to the carioca mafia since
the 1990s.
Following information supplied by a source regarding a criminal conspiracy
in the State of Rio federal police—responsible for tackling smuggling, counterfeiting
and other tax related offenses—an investigation was launched by the
counter-intelligence division of the directorate of intelligence (DICINT). The information
had revealed police officer involvement in a web of corruption, and
since this division of counter intelligence was responsible for protecting the federal
police from exterior threats, including corruption, DICINT took charge of what
would be the most important police investigation into illegal gambling in Brazil.
In 2006, the federal prosecutor and the federal police had already received
information suggesting something was wrong within the department responsible
for smuggling offenses. Now, more detailed information pointed to the involvement
of a police commissionner and an officer in one of the investigative teams.
According to a lawyer who had been a victim of the police officers, these two were
asking for money in exchange for closing investigations for lack of evidence. After
installing telephone bugging equipment and undertaking closer surveillance, the
DICINT officers realized they were on the right track.
The investigation proceeded and numerous pieces of evidence had been
gathered, when the interception of a telephone call caught the investigators’ attention:
an exchange between the officer under investigation and an unidentified individual
concerning casinos operating in the city of Rio. To begin with, the investigators
had no idea where the investigation would lead them. Two years later, the
power of the “animal barons” was exposed, as was the organization’s entrenchment
in every aspect of government. These barons had succeeded in infiltrating the executive,
judiciary and legislative arenas and in co-opting, by means of bribery, public
servants in the local authorities, the State of Rio and the federal government.
When the investigation was completed, the public prosecutor demanded
the conviction of the godfathers of the animal game, for their part in a criminal
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