Rio’s “narco-Pentecostal” gangs use religion to dominate the favelas

When police in Rio de Janeiro confiscate blocks of cocaine and bundles of marijuana, they may well find them stamped with the Star of David, a religious symbol. This reference is not to the Jewish faith, but to 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 trades these brand name drugs is Pure Third Command, one of Rio’s most powerful criminal gangs, with a reputation for both making their opponents disappear and fanatical evangelical Christianity.

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

She says gangsters see themselves as “soldiers of crime” and Jesus as the “owner” of the territory they dominate.

Some debaters have dubbed them “narco-Pentecostals.”

One man who has a background in crime and religion – though not in his case at the same time – is Pastor Diego Nascimento, who became a Christian after hearing the gospel from a gun-wielding gangster.

Looking at him, it’s hard to believe that this boyish-looking 42-year-old Wesleyan Methodist minister with a ready smile and dimples was once a member of Rio’s infamous Red Commando crime group and ran its operations in the city’s Villa Kennedy favela.

Four years in prison for drug trafficking was not enough for him to give up crime. But when he became addicted to cocaine, his position in the gang plummeted.

“I lost my family. I practically lived on the street for a year. I went so far as to sell things from my house to buy crack,” he says.

It was at the moment when he was at rock bottom that he was summoned by a known drug dealer in the favela.

“He started preaching to me, saying that there is a way out, that there is a solution for me – to accept Jesus,” he recalls.

The young drug addict took this advice and began his journey to the pulpit.

Pastor Nascimento still spends time with criminals, but now through his work in prisons, he helps people change their lives, just like he did.

Despite having been converted by a gangster, he finds the idea of ​​religious criminals controversial.

“I don’t see them as evangelicals,” he says.

“I see them as people who are on the wrong path and have the fear of God because they know that God is protecting their lives.

“There is no such thing as combining the two, being an evangelical and a gangster. If a person accepts Jesus and follows the commandments of the Bible, that person cannot be a drug dealer.”

Some predict that evangelical Christianity will overtake Catholicism as Brazil’s largest religion by the end of the decade.

As it has grown, the charismatic Pentecostal movement has found particular resonance among people living in gang-ridden favelas, and some of these groups are now drawing on elements of the faith they grew up with to wield power.

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

Cristina Vital, a professor of sociology at Rio’s Fluminense Federal University, says Rio’s poor communities have long lived “under siege” by criminal gangs, and now this is affecting their freedom of religion.

“In the Israel Complex, people with other religious beliefs cannot publicly profess them. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there is religious intolerance in this area.”

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

Followers of Afro-Brazilian faiths have long faced prejudice, and drug dealers are not the only people who have targeted them.

But Dr. Rita Salim, who heads Rio’s police department for racial crimes and intolerance, says threats and attacks by drug gangs have a particularly strong impact.

“These cases are more serious because they are imposed by a criminal organization, a group and its leader, who instills fear in the entire territory that he dominates.”

She notes that an arrest warrant has been issued for a man considered the number one criminal authority in the Israeli complex, allegedly for ordering gunmen to attack an Afro-Brazilian temple in another favela.

Although allegations of religious extremism in Rio’s favelas first gained attention in the early 2000s, the problem has “grown dramatically” in recent years, according to Marcio de Jagun, coordinator of religious diversity at Rio’s city hall.

Yagun, who is the babalorixá (high priest) of the Candomblé religion, says the problem has now become national, and similar attacks have been seen in other Brazilian cities.

“It’s a form of neo-crusade,” he says. “The superstition behind these attacks is both religious and ethnic, with outlaws demonizing African religions and claiming to drive out evil in the name of God.”

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

“If we look at the birth of the Red Command or the birth of the Third Command, Afro-religions (and Catholicism) have been around since the beginning. We see the presence of Saint George, the presence of (Afro-Brazilian god) Ògún, tattoos, crucifixes, candles, sacrifices.

“That’s why to call it narco-Pentecostalism is to weaken this historical and traditional relationship between crime and religion. I prefer to call it “narco-religion”.

Whatever you call this mixture of faith and crime, one thing seems clear: it threatens a right enshrined in the Brazilian constitution – the right to freedom of religion.

And this is another way in which violent drug traffickers harm the communities forced to live under their rule.