The FARC is laundering drug money in the slums of Brazil’s second largest city, Rio de Janeiro, local lawmakers say.
According to Rio State Deputy Flavio Bolsonaro (Progressive Party), “the FARC stopped operating as a group offering cocaine to drug trafficking gangs that operate in the ‘favelas’ and aligned itself with businessmen and land owners to launder money coming from drug trafficking.”
The Rio de Janeiro lawmaker proposed a bill allowing local police to to share intelligence with federal police “about the activities of FARC members in the state of Rio de Janeiro.”
“The intention is to demand attention to the FARC’s new modus operandi in Brazil. We have had access to intelligence information that show the FARC continue to give training to Brazilian groups that aligned with businessmen and ranchers to launder money originating from drug trafficking in Rio,” Bolsonaro told Spanish news agency EFE.
“They are using businesses and ranches of rich people in Rio de Janeiro as a front to launder money,” the lawmaker specified.
Bolsonaro’s bill is one in a series of security proposals aimed at combating drug and arms trafficking in the coastal city that spent years aggressively trying to lower its crime rates ahead of major international events like the World Cup soccer and the Olympics.
Additionally, the progressive deputy seeks the integration of the FARC to the country’s terrorist organization’s list. “The ingenious perception of the FARC as political organization , result of a deformed ideological project, allows the free movement of members and sympathizers in different segments of society,” said Bolsonaro.
One of the FARC members previously active in Brazil was “El Negro Acacio,” one of the rebel organization’s main drug traffickers until his death in 2007.