Marcinho VP

Márcio dos Santos Nepomuceno (born February 12, 1970), best known as Marcinho VP, is a Brazilian criminal identified as one of the two main leaders of the Comando Vermelho criminal organization, alongside Luiz Fernando da Costa, known as Fernandinho Beira-Mar.

Early life

According to his autobiography, Marcinho VP was born in the Vigário Geral favela in Rio's North Zone but moved to São João de Meriti in the Baixada Fluminense region as a baby. Soon after, his father was murdered. His mother was arrested four times, and he and his three siblings were raised by an aunt. He claims he started committing robberies at the age of 13 to buy designer clothes. He then progressed from theft to drug trafficking, rose through the ranks, and quickly became the leading drug lord in the Complexo do Alemão, a group of favelas in Rio's North Zone and one of the main strongholds of the Comando Vermelho.

Life in prison

Processed and convicted for drug trafficking and homicides, Marcinho was arrested at the end of August 1996 in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, in an operation led by police commissioner José Carlos Pereira Guimarães, then a member of the Grupo Astra and head of the 5th Metropolitan Regional Division (Metropol 5) of the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro State. The officer spent four months investigating Marcinho's whereabouts. At the time, the arrest was reported by the press, leading the then governor of Rio de Janeiro, Marcello Alencar, to apologize to the then governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Antônio Britto, for not having informed the state's police about the operation conducted by the Rio officers.