After agreement with the government, the Chamber approved this Tuesday, in a symbolic vote, the Anti-Faction bill, which toughens the fight against organized crime. During the processing, the text underwent changes by the opposition and was reformulated by the Senate, but the deputies had the final say.
The original proposal, formulated by Palácio do Planalto, served to position both political camps in the pre-election scenario. In the end, government supporters supported the writing of opponent Guilherme Derrite (PP-SP), rapporteur who took leave from the São Paulo Security Secretariat to address the topic.
The proposal expands penalties, reinforces arrest and investigation mechanisms and reestablishes instruments aimed at the financial suffocation of criminal factions. In plenary, parliamentarians also buried a section prepared by senators that created a new tax to finance the Security area with the taxation of betting houses.
The forecast for the so-called CID-Bets was that R$30 billion would be raised.
The Antifaction PL brings harsher penalties for crimes committed by factions, with sentences of up to 40 years in prison, and determines the creation of new instruments to combat factions, such as the creation of a database with the identification of all groups.
In the neighboring House, parliamentarians had simplified criminal classification and limited part of the precautionary measures provided for in the proposal. The approved version preserves some institutional innovations and financing mechanisms for the Security area introduced by the Senate.
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The president of the Chamber, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), stated that the text was consolidated based on an agreement with the Palácio do Planalto and had government approval for voting.
— After a long discussion, both here in the Chamber and in the Federal Senate, it was possible to reach an understanding with the government’s technical team, led by the Minister of Justice, Wellington César, who conducted a dialogue with the rapporteur. We created a text that could be voted on without wide divergences — said Motta.
See the main points:
Territorial control and higher penalties: the project criminalizes practices such as blocking roads, installing barricades, imposing rules on the population, attacks on public services, sabotage of infrastructure and obstacles to the actions of security forces. With the Chamber’s decision, the level of punishment originally approved by the deputies was restored, allowing sentences that can reach 40 years in prison.
Facilitated preventive detention: the text establishes that the practice of crimes defined in the Antifaction Bill — such as integrating, financing or commanding criminal factions or exercising territorial control through violence — constitutes sufficient grounds for the enactment of the measure.
Blocking of assets and intervention in companies: the project expands mechanisms for blocking and sequestering assets, restricting the use of the financial system and seizing assets, in addition to maintaining the so-called extraordinary forfeiture, which allows the loss of assets before the conviction becomes final. The possibility of judicial intervention in companies used by factions was also resumed, with removal of partners, financial audit and eventual liquidation of assets.
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CIDE-Bets is left out of the text: during the vote, the deputies approved an emphasis on removing the so-called CIDE-Bets from the project, a contribution on transfers intended for online sports betting platforms that had been included by the Senate as a source of funding for public security.
Financing: the text reinforces the centrality of the National Public Security Fund as the main destination for resources from seizures and other sources foreseen in the project. The model seeks to avoid the dispersion of resources.
During the analysis of the topic, the government leader in the Chamber, José Guimarães (PT-CE), supported the project. Members of the government’s political articulation team understand that there was a retreat by Derrite in relation to his text that was approved last year in the Chamber.
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“As the rapporteur incorporated the government’s fundamental indications, we decided to vote in favor of the text, with the necessary highlights”, stated the Minister of the Secretariat of Institutional Relations, Gleisi Hoffmann.
In Planalto’s view, the new text is very close to the government’s original proposal and the version that was approved in the Senate. Lula’s allies emphasize that Derrite left aside the point that could criminalize social movements and another that made it difficult to forfeit the assets of faction members. They argue that the structuring sections of the project were now maintained by the rapporteur.
Despite this, although the Minister of Justice participated in a dialogue with Derrite, sectors of the PT came to show dissatisfaction with the report presented. This PT group considers that the opinion is excessively concerned with toughening sentences and incarceration, but that there are no effective measures to increase funding for the fight against organized crime.
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“If a housewife receives a drug dealer at her door with a gun to her head, and this drug dealer, fleeing from police pursuit, asks her to keep weapons, that housewife could be guilty and face a sentence of 12 to 20 years”, said deputy Túlio Gadelha (Rede-PE), citing an excerpt that penalizes anyone who gives “hostel” to gang members.
The main complaint, however, was directed at the removal of taxation on bets. Derrite maintained the taxation, but a prominent member of the PP removed this point from the report.
In the Senate, the report by Alessandro Vieira (MDB-SE) created a new contribution on betting houses to finance public security actions and the prison system.
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“It was in Congressman’s text to deny the taxation of bets. We are talking about 30 billion for public security. I will not agree to any agreement to rid the skin of bets”, said Congressman Lindbergh Farias (PT-RJ): “I want to congratulate the Ministry of Justice, which knew how to move forward with this, but this is going to be a shameful night in the Chamber of Deputies”, added the PT member.
