{"id":21175,"date":"2015-04-10T09:00:55","date_gmt":"2015-04-10T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=21175"},"modified":"2021-02-05T16:34:35","modified_gmt":"2021-02-05T19:34:35","slug":"all-mcmv-public-housing-in-rio-is-a-target-for-organized-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=21175","title":{"rendered":"MCMV Public Housing is a Target for Organized Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the original in Portuguese by Lu\u00e3 Marinatto e Rafael Soares, published in EXTRA,\u00a0click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rio’s Minha Casa Minha Vida (MCMV)<\/a>\u00a0public housing is\u00a0designed to house the poorest families\u2014known as Band 1 financing\u2014but are also targets for criminal group activity. After three months of investigation, EXTRA<\/em> reveals that across the 64 housing complexes\u00a0already built by the federal program in Rio, their 18,834 families are subjected to forced evictions, residents’ meetings led by criminals, apartments used as points-of-sale for drugs, drug traffickers interfering in who gets new apartments, beatings and murders.<\/p>\n

To reach this conclusion, EXTRA<\/em> gathered perspectives from more than 200 people, including residents, building managers, Civil and Military Police, public prosecutors, public\u00a0and private workers, researchers and authorities. Furthermore, documents from the Civil Police; the prosecutor’s office, the Municipal Secretariat for Housing, the Disque-Den\u00fancia crisis hotline, the Caixa Econ\u00f4mica Federal\u00a0and the Ministry of Cities were analyzed. Some files were obtained via the freedom of information law. The material inspired\u00a0a series of reports called Minha Casa Minha Sina<\/em>\u00a0(My Home My Fate), the first of which\u00a0was published at the end of March.<\/p>\n

In the first report of the series, EXTRA<\/em> revealed that at least 80 families were evicted from the Haroldo de Andrade I, in Barros Filho in the North Zone<\/a>, following an order from the most wanted criminal in Rio, Celso Pinheiro Pimenta, known as \u2018Playboy.\u2019 A police investigation showed that the chief drug trafficker of Complexo da Pedreira, Costa Barros<\/a>\u2014a neighborhood next to the housing projects\u2014distributed the apartments, which needy families were forced to leave, among his allies.<\/p>\n

\"Maria<\/a><\/p>\n

Last October, in the midst of a dispute between drug factions over territory in the North Zone, Playboy recorded an audio message addressed to his rivals. In the dialogue, he states that he gave houses to men who\u00a0changed allegiances and joined his gang: \u201c[They] are here, in honor, they were awarded houses, they were awarded all kinds of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The almost 80 evicted families were not chosen at random. They were all from areas of of Manguinhos, a favela dominated by a rival faction. Shopkeeper Maria, 54 years old, remembers that night very well, in April last year, when she was forced to\u00a0leave her newly decorated apartment with her four children.<\/p>\n

“The armed criminals\u00a0asked\u00a0where we had come from. When they saw my contract with my old address in Manguinhos, they gave me a day to leave,” recalls Maria.<\/p>\n

\"minha-casa-01<\/a><\/p>\n

Government Responses<\/h3>\n

The State Secretary of\u00a0Security, Jos\u00e9 Mariano Beltrame, learned of the invasion of the condominium through a letter from the Federal\u00a0Police, which communicated the presence of “armed people preventing residents’ access.” The document was referred to the 39th<\/sup> precinct, where an inquiry was opened at the beginning of March\u00a0to investigate the case. However, the State Security Secretariat\u00a0said\u00a0that only the Civil Police\u00a0would make statements on the case.<\/p>\n

The civil police confirmed there were open inquiries about the presence of drug traffic \u201cin some developments of Minha Casa, Minha Vida,\u201d adding that \u201cthe investigations are ongoing and are undercover.\u201d<\/p>\n

Invited to comment on the situation of the 80 families forcibly evicted\u00a0by the traffickers, the Ministry of Cities representatives could not\u00a0comment because it is a \u201ccase of public security.\u201d\u00a0Caixa Econ\u00f4mica Federal, which funds the project, has stated that \u201ccomplaints related to possible invasions and evictions of residents are passed onto the Ministry of Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Below are the responses in full.<\/p>\n

Civil Police:<\/em><\/p>\n

“There are ongoing operations to expel\u00a0drug trafficking from various developments of the Minha Casa Minha Vida program. The investigations are ongoing and are undercover. All complaints of crimes in these areas passed on to the civil police are checked and investigated.<\/p>\n

“Last year, the Defrauding Office (DDEF) initiated an enquiry into fraud in the program. The report was sent to\u00a0the Ministry of Justice, with arrest warrants for Diego Lazaro Mendes Moura, Bruno de Albuquerque Povoreli Ferreira, Maria da Paz de Sousa da Silva and Lupercio Barbosa da Silva.<\/p>\n

“During one operation related to these investigations, the 31st precinct (Ricardo de Albuquerque) arrested Carlos Henrique de Oliveira, president of the Gog\u00f3 da Ema Residents’ Association, in November last year due to his involvement in the invasion of the Minha Casa Minha Vida condominium in Guadalupe. According to investigations, Carlos Henrique and Paulo Aquino, who was also a candidate for state representative, acted as organizers of the invasion and so the Ministry of Justice also released arrest warrants for them. According to the Defrauding Office, Carlos Henrique is also being investigated for selling apartments\u00a0in the condominium.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Federal<\/a><\/p>\n

Caixa Econ\u00f4mica Federal:<\/em><\/p>\n

“Caixa Econ\u00f4mica Federal (CEF) states that, in compliance with the inter-ministerial agreement, reports related to possible invasions or forced evictions of residents in the \u2018Minha Casa Minha Vida\u2019 developments are passed onto the Ministry of Justice.<\/p>\n

“After a reintegration process, the housing units are inspected to identify possible damage, renovated by construction workers and then\u00a0given to listed recipients in accordance with the rules of the program.<\/p>\n

“The bank also makes clear that any complaints related to possible safety issues received by CAIXA are transferred to SENASP, in accordance with the inter-ministerial agreement. CAIXA does not disclose the content of reports it has\u00a0received, due to the confidentiality of information that involves\u00a0security threats.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Responsibilities<\/h3>\n

Ultimately, it is the Ministry of Cities that is responsible for Minha Casa Minha Vida. It is the body that sets guidelines, establishes rules and controls the distribution of resources between states.<\/p>\n

Two public banks control the financial operations, Banco do Brasil and Caixa Econ\u00f4mica Federal, which also provide a complaints hotline for reporting any irregularities in the program to be passed on\u00a0to the Ministry of Justice.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Justice coordinates an inter-ministerial group, set up in April last year, aimed to combat problems in the program. Meetings also include the Ministry of Cities, and the Federal, State and municipal police.<\/p>\n

The Federal Oolice only respond to investigations of fraud in the program. Cases of common crimes, in general, are the responsibility of the state police.<\/p>\n

The State Security Agency (SESEG) is subordinate to the Military Police, responsible for superficial policing, and the civil police, who do the investigative work. SESEG is therefore responsible for any problems related to public security in the state.<\/p>\n

\"minha-casa-02\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As it stands, the city and state governments, through their respective housing departments, register applying families and then coordinate the distribution of apartments depending on the project. In the first few months after the development launched, the agencies need to monitor\u00a0residents through the presence of social workers, who\u00a0can\u00a0receive complaints about any eventual irregularities.<\/p>\n

*All names are fictitious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the original in Portuguese by Lu\u00e3 Marinatto e Rafael Soares, published in EXTRA,\u00a0click\u00a0here. Rio’s Minha Casa Minha Vida (MCMV)\u00a0public housing is\u00a0designed to house the poorest families\u2014known as Band 1 financing\u2014but are also targets for […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":21215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1293,1330,336],"tags":[718,1604,282,1375,26,25,33,1851,157,37],"writer":[1526,1527],"translator":[1344],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-translation","9":"category-violations","10":"tag-costa-barros","11":"tag-guadalupe","12":"tag-housing","13":"tag-housing-deficit","14":"tag-housing-rights","15":"tag-human-rights","16":"tag-militia","17":"tag-morro-da-pedreira","18":"tag-minha-casa-minha-vida","19":"tag-north-zone","20":"writer-lua-marinatto","21":"writer-rafael-soares","22":"translator-cara-pears"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21175"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=21175"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=21175"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=21175"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=21175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}