International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 34

Territorial and Corrosive: The “jogo do bicho” (Animal Game) and Organized Crime in Brazil
Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro and the National Congress. The financing
of electoral campaigns is the preferred strategy for building relationships with politicians.
The accounts seized during the raids included campaign contributions
benefiting several candidates. Judge Vieira de Carvalho noted 55 that the criminal
entity had contacts with other parliamentarians through Simão Sessim, Anísio’s
cousin and deputy, but also obtained meetings, including with the President of the
Republic, under the pretext of discussing the organization of the carnival. In fact,
the organization was trying to enlist support for passing a bill to legalize casinos
and other forms of gambling, including the operation of slot machines and the
animal game.
Connections with other criminal bodies and diversification
During a parliamentary Commission 56 set up to look into the bicheiro Carlos
Cachoeira’s bribery of Waldomiro Diniz, deputy secretary of parliamentary affairs,
the Italian anti-mafia agency (Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, DIA) provided
information proving the connection between the Brazilian Bicheiros, the Spanish
Ortiz family, and foreign mafias.
This goes back to 2000, during a federal police operation in the south of
Brazil, targeting corrupt federal police officers and the local Bicheiros. Based on information
from the DIA, this judicial investigation unveiled the alliance between the
Ortiz family, at that time owners of the companies Astro Turismo and Banco Tour;
the Italian Mafiosi Fausto Pellegrinetti, Lillo Rosario Lauricella, Guiseppe Aronica,
and Franco Narducci; and the French gangsters Julien and François Filippeddu. 57
The DIA sent the Brazilian authorities statements by Lillo Lauricella suggesting that
Fausto Pellegrinetti was responsible for laundering Columbian drug money.
The money laundering operation for Colombian drugs, which find their
way to Europe via the port of Santos in São Paulo, Brazil, was managed by the
Banda della Magliana gang, a proto-mafia gang from Rome, and run by Fausto
Pellegrinetti and Lillo Lauricella. The latter also revealed the existence of a partnership
between the Italian gang and the Ortiz family, based in Brazil. According
to Lauricella (who was assassinated after collaborating with the judiciary) the bicheiro
Ivo Noal, who controlled the game in the State of São Paulo, was the initial
intermediary between the mafia and the Brazilian Bicheiros. Lauricella was the
operator sent out to Brazil while Fausto Pellegrinetti remained in Italy.
Lauricella also explained that the Filippeddu brothers, linked to the Corsican
National Liberation Front, came to Brazil to give him support. Under the Italian
55 Decision of Judge Ana Paula de Carvalho in trial record no. 2007.51.01.802985-5, Justiça
Federal, Rio de Janeiro, 2012: 668
56 Report of the Parliamentary Commission, CPI dos Bingos, accessed February 9, 2018 www.
senado.gov.br/comissoes/CPI/Bingos/RelFinalBingos.pdf
57 The Filippeddu brothers are featured in Les Héritiers du Milieu: Au cœur du grand banditisme,
de la Corse à Paris by Thierry Colombie (Paris: La Martinière, 2013).
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