Capitão Guimarães

Ailton Guimarães Jorge, better known as Capitão Guimarães, is an illegal lottery operator (bicheiro) and the patron of samba school Unidos do Viradouro. He has been the president of the Independent League of Samba Schools of Rio de Janeiro (LIESA) from 1987–1993 and 2001-2007.

Capitão Guimarães is a former army captain attached to the DOI-CODI involved in torture during the military dictatorship of Brazil (1964–1985). He operated out of Section II (Intelligence) of the Army Police in Rio’s Vila Militar, a unit that, like all of the dictatorship’s torture squads, received substantial rewards for capturing or killing left-wing militants.

He also got involved in contraband activities. The scheme was discovered and Guimarães and his gang were arrested. During their trial the gang members claimed the confessions had been extorted from them. Most of them said that after being beaten they had signed the confessions without reading them. In May 1979, the 21 accused were found innocent. In appeal the case was thrown out, ironically on the grounds of torture. But Guimarães’ military career had been compromised and he resigned from the Army.

After his army career he got involved in the Jogo do Bicho (the “animal game”), a very popular illegal lottery. He started out as a manager for the bicho banker Guto, who controlled four cities in the state of Rio. After the mysterious disappearance of Guto, the chief bicheiro Tio Patinhas gave Guimarães Guto’s bank. Within three years Guimarães gained a seat on the council of seven major bicho bankers, publishing the minutes of the meetings, adjudicating the territory of smaller bankers. His territory extended from Niterói, the lake region in Rio de Janeiro State and north to Espirito Santo.

According to judge Denise Frossard and public prosecutor Antônio Carlos Biscaia, the bicheiros built an association (known as the cupola do bicho), that controlled the illegal gambling business and shielded it from prosecution by corrupting authorities and police. The cupola established itself when a power conflict between the bicheiros ceased at the beginning of the 1980s after the murder of an ex-policeman linked to the association that tried to intrude in the gambling racket in Niteroi controlled by Capitao Guimaraes and another prominent illegal gambling operator, Antonio Petrus Kalil, nicknamed Turcão. (The murder remained unsolved)

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Wikipedia