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

When police in Rio de Janeiro seize blocks of cocaine and packets of marijuana, they are likely to find them marked with a religious symbol: the Star of David. This is not a reference to the Jewish faith, but to the belief of some Pentecostal Christians that the return of Jews to Israel will lead to the second coming of Christ.

The gang selling these designer drugs is Pure Third Command, one of Rio's most powerful criminal groups, renowned both for eliminating opponents and fanatical evangelical Christianity.

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

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

Controversially, some have dubbed them “narco-Pentecostals.”

One man who has experience with crime and religion – but in his case, not at the same time – is pastor Diego Nascimento, who became a Christian after hearing the gospel from a gangster holding a gun.

Looking at him, it's hard to believe that this 42-year-old Wesleyan Methodist pastor, with his boyish appearance, smile and dimples, was once a member of Rio's notorious Red Command criminal gang and ran its activities in the favela of Vila Kennedy, in Rio.

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

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

It was at this time, when he was at his lowest, that a well-known drug dealer in the favela summoned him.

“He started preaching to me, telling me that there was a way out, that there was a solution for me, which was to accept Jesus,” he remembers.

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

Pastor Nascimento still spends time with criminals, but it is now through his work in prisons that he helps people change their lives, as he did himself.

Although he was converted by a gangster, he sees the notion of religious criminals as a contradiction in terms.

“I don’t consider them evangelical believers,” he said.

“I see them as people who are going down the wrong path and who are afraid of God because they know that God is the One who guards their lives.

“There is no combination of the two, being an evangelical and a thug. If a person accepts Jesus and follows the biblical commandments, that person cannot be a drug dealer.”

Some predictions suggest that evangelical Christianity will overtake Catholicism as Brazil's largest religion by the end of the decade.

As it has grown, the Pentecostal charismatic movement has particularly resonated with residents of gang-infested favelas, and some of these gangs now draw on elements of the faith they grew up in to exercise power.

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

Christina Vital, a sociology professor at Rio's Fluminense Federal University, says Rio's poor communities have long lived “under siege” by criminal gangs, which now affects their freedom of religion.

“In the Israeli complex, you cannot see people with other religious beliefs practicing them publicly. It is not an exaggeration to speak of religious intolerance in this territory.”

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

Followers of Afro-Brazilian faiths have long faced prejudice, and drug traffickers are not the only ones to target them.

But Dr. Rita Salim, who heads Rio's police department for racial and intolerance crimes, says threats and attacks from narco-gangs have a particularly powerful impact.

“These cases are more serious because they are imposed by a criminal organization, by a group and its leader, who impose fear throughout the territory it dominates.”

She notes that an arrest warrant has been issued for the man considered the main crime boss in the Israeli compound, for allegedly ordering gunmen to attack an Afro-Brazilian temple in another favela.

While allegations of religious extremism in Rio's favelas first gained attention in the early 2000s, the problem has “increased significantly” in recent years, according to diversity coordinator Marcio de Jagun nun at Rio town hall.

Jagun, who is a babalorixá (high priest) of the Candomblé religion, says the problem is now national, with similar attacks seen in other Brazilian cities.

“It’s a form of neo-crusade,” he says. “The biases behind these attacks are both religious and ethnic, with outlaws demonizing Africa's religions and claiming to banish evil in the name of God.”

But religion and crime have long been linked 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 Commandment, or the birth of the Third Commandment, Afro religions [and Catholicism] have been there since their beginnings. We see the presence of Saint George, the presence of [the Afro-Brazilian god] Ògún, tattoos, crucifixes, candles, offerings.

“This is why to call it narco-Pentecostalism is to reduce this very historical and traditional relationship between crime and religion. I prefer to call it ‘narco-religiosity’.”

Whatever you call this mix of faith and criminality, one thing seems clear: it endangers a right enshrined in the Brazilian constitution: that of religious freedom.

And it's yet another way in which violent drug traffickers harm the communities forced to live under their rule.