Police investigating a brazen murder in the arrivals area of Brazil's main airport have at least three investigations underway to track down the killer and the mastermind behind the shocking crime.
Antonio Vinicius López Glitzbach, 38, was about to leave Sao Paulo's international airport on Friday afternoon when two hooded men jumped out of his car and a hail of bullets rained down on him. brazen attack, caught on security cameramarked a dramatic escalation in criminal violence in the country.
Glitzbach, a former member of the First Capital Command (PCC) criminal faction, was shot 10 times and died at the scene.
Three people nearby were also attacked. Uber driver Celso Araujo Sampaio de Novais, 41 years old He was shot in the back and died a few hours later.. The other two people were not seriously injured, one employee of the contract company is still under observation at the hospital, and the female passenger has already been released from the hospital.
“Public executions are not new for the PCC,” said Renato Sergio de Lima, executive director of the Brazilian Public Safety Forum. “What was striking in this case was the audacity of committing such a crime in a highly monitored area, Latin America's second largest airport, where multiple law enforcement agencies are present.”
According to prosecutors, Glitzbach, a former real estate agent, said: helped a criminal group Laundering R$30m (£4m) from international drug trafficking through investments in real estate and petrol stations.
He also Reportedly received R$100m (£13.6m) PCC leader Anselmo Veceli Santa Fausta, known as Cala Preta (black face), asked him to invest in cryptocurrencies. Fausta requested his return in 2021, but Glitzbach reportedly did not comply. In the same year, Fausta and her bodyguard were murdered. Prosecutors argued that Glitzbach ordered the crime. On the other hand, PCC is 3 million reais (£407,381) on his head.
Glitzbach, who was sentenced to death by the PCC, approached the prosecutor's office and offered to reveal details of the gang's money laundering activities in exchange for a plea deal. On October 31 last year, he expanded his testimony, claim a police officer He was accepting bribes to protect gang members from investigation.
Eight days later he was murdered. The timing led to speculation that police officers were involved in his death. A cloud of suspicion spread further. Glitzbach hired four police officers to act as bodyguards, which is illegal under Brazilian law. However, they were reportedly absent at the time of the attack as their car broke down on the way to the airport.
On Tuesday, the São Paulo City Public Security Bureau announced the suspension of four executivesand four others who worked as Glitzbach's security guards.
A third theory is that Glitzbach was killed over debt.
“This man's death was a joy to many,” Detective Osvaldo Nico Goncalves said. He told the Brazilian newspaper Estadão.. “We will pursue the facts regardless of the involvement of civilian police or military police,” he said.
Security expert Lima said the killing was further evidence that organized crime in Brazil was beginning to reach the “scale” of Mexican cartels.
“The extent of crimes polluting the state and public economy, such as money laundering in real estate, fuel networks, and virtual currencies, is reaching the level of Mexico. And this is very worrying,” he said. Ta.
