Alleged Brazilian Gang Leader Arrested In Bolivia: Police

Rio de Janeiro: Brazilian federal police on Saturday announced the arrest in Bolivia of a man suspected of being a leader of one of Brazil's biggest organized crime groups.

A federal police source, speaking on grounds of anonymity, told AFP the man was Marcos Roberto de Almeida, who is known as "Tuta."

The suspect was the subject of a so-called Interpol red notice, effectively an international arrest warrant issued only for serious crimes.

His arrest, for using a false document in the eastern city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, came in an operation involving both a special Bolivian anti-crime unit and the Brazilian federal police, the police said in a statement.

"He was identified as one of the principal actors in an international money-laundering network linked to a criminal organization," the statement added.

Tuta is believed to be the successor to Marcos Willians Herbas, or "Marcola," the historic chief of the First Capital Command (PCC), one of Brazil's most powerful gangs, with a reach stretching beyond the country's borders.

Marcola is currently being held in a top-security federal prison.

Tuta faces a prison sentence of at least 12 years for money laundering and criminal conspiracy charges.

Brazilian police said he remains in Bolivian hands, pending his possible expulsion or extradition.

The PCC was founded in the 1990s in Sao Paulo, initially to demand better prison conditions following the so-called Carandiro massacre of 1992, which claimed 111 lives after police stormed a Sao Paulo penitentiary to quell rioting.

PCC is considered a major source of the South American cocaine smuggled to Europe.

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