Busted in Copacabana

One of my fellow Latin America-philes was kind enough to write a guest post about a huge Colombian drug kingpin bust in Rio. Brazil has become a major transshipment point for cocaine in the Americas, and big time dealers seem to have even lived in Brazil without much of a hassle--until recently. Joint task forces and Federal Police operations have managed to bring not one but two Colombian drug kingpins down in Brazil, the most recent one in one of Rio's most famous playgrounds.

Narco Arrested in Copacabana

One of Colombia’s most wanted drug barons was arrested while leaving his apartment on the afternoon of April 16.

The apartment wasn't a luxurious residence hidden in the hills outside Medellin or Cali. Nor was it a multimillion-dollar apartment in downtown Bogotá.

It was the intersection of Rua Hilário de Gouveia and Avenida Atlantida on Copacabana beach. A joint task force consisting of three different Brazilian anti-crime organizations and collaboration from the United States’ Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) arrested Nestor Ramon Caro Chapparo, aka “Felipe”, in one Rio's most famous neighborhoods. The US Department of State was offering up to US $5 million for Caro Chapparo’s arrest. 

It’s the second high-profile bust of a Colombian drug trafficker in one week that occurred outside of Colombia. Ramon Quintero, a suspected leader of the Norte del Valle Cartel, was arrested in a bakery in an upscale neighborhood in northern Quito, Ecuador, on April 13. Like Caro Chapparo, the US State Department was willing to pay up to US $5 million for information leading to Quintero's arrest.

However, unlike Quintero, who was a leader of one of Colombia’s most powerful cartels, authorities believe that Caro Chapparo was largely an independent trafficker, who likely used his connections with the former members of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to facilitate the transportation of thousands of kilograms of cocaine to the United States, as well as West Africa and Europe via various points along the Brazilian coast.

The timing of Caro Capparo’s arrest occurs within the same week that a Defense Cooperation Agreement between Brasilia and Washington in “defense related matters” and “cooperation in any other military fields that may be of mutual interest to the Parties”.

Although the deal doesn’t specifically call out monitoring drug trafficking, it is likely implied. The US State Department recognizes Brazil, particularly Sao Paulo, as a cocaine export corridor for US and European bound cocaine. 

The arrest of Caro Chapparo highlights Brazil’s relevance as a port of exit for drugs bound for the US and Europe. Caro Chapparo was not the first to fall. In August 2007, Brazilian authorities arrested Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, another Norte del Valle leader, in Aldeia da Serra in Greater Sao Paulo. Though the local market, which Veja says is dominated by Bolivian cocaine, exists in Brazil, the presence of internationally wanted suspects such as Caro Chapparo shows that it is Brazil's geographic location, not population, that attracts international drug traffickers.

At the local level, a lethal confrontation between Police and gang members in an attempted bust of a leading trafficker in Vila Alianza on April 20 that left five dead offers a chilling reminder that men like Capo Chapparo are the exception, not the rule, in drug-related arrests and attempted arrests in Brazil.

Eliot Brockner is a Rio Gringa reader. He writes at LatAmThought.