A Brazilian businessman has been killed and three people injured in an apparent gangland assassination at São Paulo’s international airport in Guarulhos.
The victims were caught in a hail of bullets when a gunman with a rifle opened fire from inside a black car parked outside the airport’s terminal 2, which is mainly used for domestic flights.
Police identified the dead man as Antônio Vinícius Lopes Gritzbach, who had previously received death threats from the First Capital Command (PCC), Brazil’s most powerful crime syndicate.
Prosecutors reportedly describe Lopes Gritzbach as a businessman who worked with bitcoin and cryptocurrency. He had reportedly been accused of money laundering, and had recently entered into a plea bargain with local prosecutors to speak about his ties to the criminal organization, police said.
Police have not yet determined the number of gunmen involved in the attack.
Footage posted on social media showed the aftermath of the attack with two victims lying sprawled on the ground.
Created in August 1993, the PCC has become Brazil’s most feared criminal faction, conquering drug markets, smuggling routes, shantytowns and prisons across Brazil, including in far-flung corners of the Amazon.
It also became a major player in other South American countries such as neighbouring Paraguay, where the group has been blamed for multimillion-dollar armed robberies and bombings and targeted assassinations.
In recent years years, the group has increased its international ties, forging lucrative alliances with partners including Bolivian cocaine producers and Italian mafiosi.
The PCC boasts tens of thousands of members and has a growing portfolio of interests, including illegal goldmines in the Amazon. It controls one of South America’s most important trafficking routes – linking Bolivia and Brazil to Europe and Africa – and is partly responsible for a tsunami of cocaine that has brought car bombings, assassinations and gunfights to parts of Europe.