Rio’s ‘narco-pentecostal’ gangs use religion to dominate favelas

When the police in Rio de Janeiro seize bundles of cocaine and bundles of marijuana, they can find them marked with a religious symbol – the Star of David. This is not about the Jewish faith, but the belief of some Pentecostal Christians that the return of the Jews to Israel will lead to the Second Coming of Christ.

The gang that sells the drug is Pure Third Command, one of Rio’s most powerful gangs, with a reputation for exterminating its enemies, as well as a crude evangelical Christianity.

They took over a group of five favelas in the north of the city – now known as the Israel Complex – after one of their leaders had what he believed to be a revelation from God, says theologian Vivian Costa, author of the book, Evangelical Drug. Sellers.

He said that the bandits see themselves as “bandit soldiers” and that Jesus is the “owner” of the area they rule.

In contrast, some call them “Narco-Pentecostal”.

One person who has met crime and religion – although not at the same time – is Pastor Diego Nascimento, who became a Christian after hearing the gospel from armed robbers.

Looking at him, it’s hard to believe that the 42-year-old Wesley Methodist minister with a ready smile and dimples, was a member of Rio’s famous Red Command gang and ran his activities in the Vila Kennedy favela.

Four years in prison for drug dealing was not enough to make him stop crime. But when he became addicted to crack cocaine, his standing in the group went down.

“I lost my family. I lived on the streets for about a year. I even went to a grocery store to buy crack,” he says.

It was then, when he was on the ground, that a drug dealer in the favela called him.

“He started preaching to me, saying that there is a way out, that there is a way to get rid of me, that is to accept Jesus,” he remembers.

The addicted young man took this advice and began his journey to the altar.

Pastor Nascimento still hangs out with gangsters, but now it’s his job in prison, where he helps people change their lives, just like he did.

Although he was converted by a terrorist, he finds the idea of ​​religious terrorists controversial.

He said: “I don’t see them as evangelical believers.”

“I see them as people who are walking in the wrong way and who fear God because they know that God is the one who saves their lives.

“There is no such thing as a combination of the two, being a preacher and a criminal. If a person accepts Jesus and follows the rules of the Bible, that person cannot be a drug dealer.”

Evangelical Christianity, according to some predictions, will overtake Catholicism as the largest religion in Brazil by the end of the decade.

As it has grown, the Pentecostal movement has been particularly affected by people living in gang-ridden favelas, and now some of these groups are taking aspects of the faith they grew up with to use power.

One of the charges against them is that they use violence to suppress Afro-Brazilian beliefs.

Christina Vital, a professor of sociology at Rio’s Fluminense Federal University, said that Rio’s poor neighborhoods have been “besieged” by criminal gangs, and this is now interfering with their religious freedom.

“In the Israel Complex, people of other religious beliefs cannot be seen practicing it in public. It is not an exaggeration to speak of religious intolerance in that area.”

Vital says the Afro-Brazilian Umbanda and Candomblé religious houses have also been closed in the surrounding area, while bandits sometimes paint messages on the walls such as “Jesus is the Lord of this place.”

People who adhere to Afro-Brazilian beliefs have been criticized for a long time, and they are not the only people targeted.

But Dr Rita Salim, who is the head of the police department in Rio that deals with ethnic crimes and intolerance, said that threats and attacks by narco-criminals have a very strong effect.

“These crimes are very dangerous because they are placed by a terrorist group, a group and their leader, who cause fear in all the areas they rule.”

He added that an arrest warrant has been issued for the man who is suspected of being the main crime boss in the Israeli Complex, for ordering armed men to attack an Afro-Brazilian temple in another favela.

Although reports of religious extremism in Rio’s favelas first emerged in the early 2000s, the problem has “grown exponentially” in recent years, according to Marcio de Jagun, interfaith coordinator at Rio’s City Hall.

Jagun, who is a babarixá (high priest) of the Candomblé religion, says the issue is now national, and similar violence is seen in other Brazilian cities.

“This is a kind of neo-Crusade,” he says. “The racism that causes these crimes is religious and ethnic, and the criminals encourage the African religions to end the evil in the name of God.

But religion and crime have long been linked in Brazil, says theologian Vivian Costa. In the past, pirates sought protection from Afro-Brazilian gods and Catholic saints.

“If we look at the birth of the Red Command, or the birth of the Third Command, Afro religions [and Catholicism] they have been there since the beginning. We see the presence of Saint George, the presence of [the Afro-Brazilian god] Ògún, artwork, crosses, candles, offerings.

“That’s why to call it Narco-Pentecostalism is to minimize that historical and cultural relationship between crime and religion. I prefer to call it ‘Narco-Religiosity’.”

Whatever one calls the fusion of faith and crime, one thing is clear: it threatens the freedom established in the Brazilian constitution – religious freedom.

And this is another way that violent drug traffickers destroy the communities they control.