DRUG CORRUPTION STYMIES BRAZIL

Report Accuses Hundreds Of Involvement, Including High-Level Politicians

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- The longest investigation into narcotics
trafficking ever carried out in Brazil has found that drug-related
corruption has become so common that the country cannot mount an
effective attack against the problem.

A 1,198-page report was released last week by a legislative
commission that spent 14 months investigating organized drug crimes.

It accused 824 people of offenses ranging from drug running to arms
trafficking to tax evasion.

The suspects included two federal congressmen, two former state
governors and 15 state legislators.

Scores more mayors, judges, police officers, lawyers and even senior
military figures from the neighboring countries of Bolivia and
Paraguay also were accused of involvement in a business that the
report said sends $50 billion in dirty money through Brazil's banks
each year.

While the commission called for the arrests of those named, it said
drug-related corruption has become so widespread in Brazil that it
cannot be cleaned up without help from the military and rearming the
police.

In the meantime, it said, the country's federal, state and military
police forces must wage a coordinated campaign against the drug gangs
and their powerful allies and the government must strengthen its
witness protection program.

"Authorities have to understand that organized crime is organized and
we are disorganized," said Eber Silva, one of the commission's
members.

He called on authorities to restructure "the police, the justice
system and the armed forces because if they don't, then a situation
that is already unbearable will become even more unbearable."

Some experts expressed doubt whether many of the powerful figures
named will ever be prosecuted.

James Cavallaro, the head of the Global Justice human rights group,
said Brazil's judicial system is "overloaded, backlogged and
inefficient and suffers pressure from these thugs and their allies to
remain inefficient."

Instead, he said, "history shows us that what is likely to occur is
that the follow-up will be focused on lower level traffickers."

The report named Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo as the main centers in
Brazil where narcotics traffickers operate and highlighted how drug
gangs from across the country work together to import cocaine, heroin
and marijuana from the Andean nations and distribute them in Brazil's
cities.

It cited more than 100 companies the traffickers used to launder
money and resell goods stolen by gangs of thieves.

Most dramatically, the report revealed the key roles played by
politicians, police officers and other influential figures in the
illegal drug trade.

"It showed fairly clearly the relationship between drug trafficking,
organized crime, violence and the corruption of authorities and, in
particular, police," said Cavallaro.

"Those who are tied to the import and export of drugs and those who
are involved at a high level are often authorities and police
officers" he said.

"To really resolve the problem of criminal violence," he said, "you
really need to purge the police."

One of those named in the report, former Congressman Hildebrando
Pascoal, was removed from the Chamber of Deputies last year after
investigators were told that he ran a death squad that cut up victims
with chain saws and dropped them in vats of acid.

The man who replaced him in the chamber was one of the two federal
deputies accused in the report.

The report also provided fascinating details into how far drug
trafficking has permeated Brazilian business and society.

One part told how a drug trafficker gave a judge a
drinks-distribution company in return for a reduction in his sentence.

Another chapter said traffickers use 600 clandestine airports in Sao
Paulo state alone.

As a measure of the report's influence, at least eight and perhaps as
many as 30 people who gave evidence to investigators later turned up
dead, officials acknowledged.

One of the report's authors told congressional leaders that if they
were serious about defeating the traffickers, they must create a
permanent body to investigate them and their accomplices.

"Our success was having taken off the blindfold so that the country
can see the reality that until now was only partially visible," said
Moroni Torgan, who is a member of Congress.

But "the work is a preliminary work," he said. "We shone the
spotlight on organized crime and highlighted lots of actors, but
there are many more in the wings."