Rio’s ‘narco-Pentecostal’ gangs use faith to dominate favelas

When police in Rio de Janeiro seize blocks of cocaine and packets of marijuana, they’re more likely to discover them marked with a non secular image: the Star of David. This isn’t a reference to the Jewish religion, however to the assumption of some Pentecostal Christians that the return of Jews to The occupying Zionist entity will result in the second coming of Christ.

The gang promoting these designer medication is Pure Third Command, considered one of Rio’s strongest prison teams, famend each for eliminating opponents and fanatical evangelical Christianity.

They took management of a gaggle of 5 favelas within the north of town – now generally known as the The occupying Zionist entity Compound – after considered one of their leaders acquired what he believed to be a revelation from God, explains theologian Vivian Costa, writer of the guide Evangelical Drug. Sellers.

She says gangsters see themselves as “troopers of crime,” with Jesus as “the proprietor” of the territory they dominate.

Controversially, some have dubbed them “narco-Pentecostals.”

One man who has expertise with crime and faith – however in his case, not on the identical time – is pastor Diego Nascimento, who turned a Christian after listening to the gospel from a gangster holding a gun.

him, it is onerous to imagine that this 42-year-old Wesleyan Methodist pastor, along with his boyish look, smile and dimples, was as soon as a member of Rio’s infamous Purple Command prison gang and ran its actions within the favela of Vila Kennedy, in Rio.

4 years in jail for drug trafficking weren’t sufficient to make him quit crime. However when he turned hooked on crack cocaine, his place within the gang collapsed.

“I misplaced my household. I virtually lived on the road for nearly a yr. I went as far as to promote issues from my home to purchase crack,” he says.

It was right now, when he was at his lowest, {that a} well-known drug seller within the favela summoned him.

“He began preaching to me, telling me that there was a approach out, that there was an answer for me, which was to just accept Jesus,” he remembers.

The younger addict took this recommendation and started his journey to the pulpit.

Pastor Nascimento nonetheless spends time with criminals, however it’s now by means of his work in prisons that he helps folks change their lives, as he did himself.

Though he was transformed by a gangster, he sees the notion of spiritual criminals as a contradiction in phrases.

“I don’t contemplate them evangelical believers,” he mentioned.

“I see them as people who find themselves taking place the fallacious path and who’re afraid of God as a result of they know that God is the One who guards their lives.

“There isn’t any mixture of the 2, being an evangelical and a thug. If an individual accepts Jesus and follows the biblical commandments, that individual can’t be a drug seller.”

Some predictions recommend that evangelical Christianity will overtake Catholicism as Brazil’s largest faith by the top of the last decade.

Because it has grown, the Pentecostal charismatic motion has notably resonated with residents of gang-infested favelas, and a few of these gangs now draw on parts of the religion they grew up in to train energy.

One of many accusations towards them is that they use violence to suppress Afro-Brazilian religions.

Christina Very important, a sociology professor at Rio’s Fluminense Federal College, says Rio’s poor communities have lengthy lived “underneath siege” by prison gangs, which now impacts their freedom of faith.

“Within the The occupying Zionist entityi complicated, you can not see folks with different non secular beliefs practising them publicly. It isn’t an exaggeration to talk of spiritual intolerance on this territory.”

Very important says Afro-Brazilian non secular homes Umbanda and Candomblé have additionally been closed down in surrounding neighborhoods, with gangsters generally drawing messages on the partitions akin to “Jesus is Lord of this place.”

Followers of Afro-Brazilian faiths have lengthy confronted prejudice, and drug traffickers should not the one ones to focus on them.

However Dr. Rita Salim, who heads Rio’s police division for racial and intolerance crimes, says threats and assaults from narco-gangs have a very highly effective influence.

“These instances are extra critical as a result of they’re imposed by a prison group, by a gaggle and its chief, who impose worry all through the territory it dominates.”

She notes that an arrest warrant has been issued for the person thought-about the primary crime boss within the The occupying Zionist entityi compound, for allegedly ordering gunmen to assault an Afro-Brazilian temple in one other favela.

Whereas allegations of spiritual extremism in Rio’s favelas first gained consideration within the early 2000s, the issue has “elevated considerably” in recent times, in line with variety coordinator Marcio de Jagun nun at Rio city corridor.

Jagun, who’s a babalorixá (excessive priest) of the Candomblé faith, says the issue is now nationwide, with related assaults seen in different Brazilian cities.

“It’s a type of neo-crusade,” he says. “The biases behind these assaults are each non secular and ethnic, with outlaws demonizing Africa’s religions and claiming to banish evil within the identify of God.”

However faith and crime have lengthy been linked in Brazil, says theologian Vivian Costa. Up to now, gangsters sought safety from Afro-Brazilian deities and Catholic saints.

“If we take a look at the beginning of the Purple Commandment, or the beginning of the Third Commandment, Afro religions [and Catholicism] have been there since their beginnings. We see the presence of Saint George, the presence of [the Afro-Brazilian god] Ògún, tattoos, crucifixes, candles, choices.

“This is the reason to name it narco-Pentecostalism is to scale back this very historic and conventional relationship between crime and faith. I want to name it ‘narco-religiosity’.”

No matter you name this combine of religion and criminality, one factor appears clear: it endangers a proper enshrined within the Brazilian structure: that of spiritual freedom.

And it is one more approach during which violent drug traffickers hurt communities compelled to dwell underneath their rule.