The Rodeo, the Fintech, the Façade: When Brazil’s “Good Life” Becomes a Crime Scene

On a hot night in the interior of São Paulo state, under the flood-lights of a rodeo arena, a man in a cowboy hat steps off a chute and raises his arms to the roar of the crowd. The hat, the chaps, the imported pickup, the Instagram post: all of it shimmers the promise of rural success, of “Brazilian agribiz living”. This man is Eduardo Magrini — known online as Diabo Loiro — and in October 2025 he was arrested in an operation targeting the PCC.

He exemplifies the new mask of crime: not just hidden gunmen in favelas, but influencer-entrepreneurs, farmland owners, event organisers, fintech operators. A malign mutation of organised crime, adapting, diversifying, blending legality and illegality until the line blurs.

From shoot-outs to stock portfolios

Long known as São Paulo’s dominant prison-born gang, the PCC’s roots lie in drug trafficking, prison riots and turf war. But this story cannot end as the old one. Today the gang is also an investment fund, a real-estate buyer, a fuel-sector infiltrator, a social-media brand.

In August 2025, Brazilian authorities launched what they called “one of the biggest operations in history” against organised crime. The target? A web of companies, investment funds, gas stations, ethanol plants, fuel-trucks — billions of reais moving through seemingly legitimate channels.
Reports say: the PCC used 1,000+ gas stations across 10 states, fintech shadow-banks moving ~R$ 46 billion, investment funds controlling R$ 30 billion in assets. The canopy of rural-influencer living is now grounded in bank ledgers and corporate registries.

Planting legitimacy in the farmland frontier

Crime needs cover. The agribusiness frontier offers both cash-intensive opportunity and regulatory haziness. The PCC is suspected of involvement in regions of illegal mining and land-fires. In 2024, authorities suspected the PCC of orchestrating arson across 59,000 hectares of sugar-cane plantations in São Paulo — losses exceeding R$ 1 billion. 

Mining too: in 2021 it was reported that the PCC was “approaching miners to launder money” through weakly regulated gold operations in the Amazon region.
The lesson: if you can buy land, import fuel, set up a blender-plant, register a fintech, you can look like agribusiness while you are criminal operations. The hats and boots, the reels and the countryside, become props in a laundering drama.

Influencer culture meets criminal capital

Enter Diabo Loiro. A cowboy-influencer with tens of thousands of followers. A rural producer persona. A face that blends farm-photography, rodeo footage, brand-content, lifestyle. And — according to public prosecution files — a conduit for a high-level criminal enterprise.

This is the performance of respectability. The finances may be dark — trafficking, money-laundering, front-companies — but the image is daylight: farmer, influencer, family-man, evangelical. One study even identifies the concept of “narco-pentecostalism” in Brazil: criminal gangs investing in churches, religious fronts, social-media religiosity to launder money and secure social cover.
The influencer is not a side-act; it’s architecture of cover. He builds followers, builds brands, builds “legit-business” narrative while the real business stays hidden in logistic chains, shell companies, fuel trucks.

The supply-chain of laundering

Here’s how the transformation happens:

1. Illicit proceeds from trafficking or other crime are layered through seemingly legitimate sectors (mining, fuel imports, truck fleets, agribusiness).
2. They are concealed via investment funds, fintechs, complex corporate ownership. Reports say nearly R$ 46 billion moved through fintechs from 2020-24. 
3. Assets are acquired: gas stations, ethanol plants, trucking fleets, farms. Officials found ethanol plants, 1,600 trucks and over 100 properties tied to the scheme. 
4. Image-branding kicks in: the man in cowboy hat, the feed of rural success, the “legit business” façade.
5. Regulators, law-enforcement, and public discourse remain chasing the violence in the favelas — while the silent economy of crime eats asset-markets, logistics and agriculture.

The state’s blind spots & complicit co-opts

Agribusiness, influencer culture, fintech-startups: all sectors that enjoy symbolic legitimacy in Brazil. A cowboy influencer in a rural feed doesn’t trigger the same suspicion as a masked thug in a favela.
From a regulatory viewpoint:

• Land‐registries and farmland oversight are patchy.
• The fuel-distribution sector is massive, complex, and intertwined with regional politics.
• Fintechs and funds can obscure beneficial owners behind shell structures.
  Criminal groups exploit exactly these cracks. One legal advisory firm notes: “PCC infiltration in companies in Brazil is no longer theoretical; it is documented reality.” 
  Thus the man in the cowboy hat isn’t just fantasy — he’s part of a system that says: we are above board, we invest in agribusiness, we promote rural values — while the ledgers say something else.

The symbolic politics of rural crime

Why rodeo? Why farmland? Because agribusiness remains one of Brazil’s pillars — it accounts for ~25 % of GDP. The cowboy hat is iconography of tradition, of white landowning Brazil, of “good values”. The influencer feed amplifies that.
In turn, criminals who embed themselves in that culture gain social camouflage. They become “rural producers” instead of gangsters. They join church boards, become patrons of local festivals, show up at rodeos. They invest in media, in instagram-stories.

This is not mere PR: it is strategic. It shifts public perception from “who are those criminals?” to “look at that successful farm-entrepreneur”. And when the public watchdogs look the other way, the value of that camouflage is clear.

Closing: The Frontier of Invisibility

The rodeo lights go out. The Instagram stories fade from highlight. The cowboy hat lies on an evidence table. But the real front remains open and invisible: the farmland, the fuel-terminal, the investment fund, the shell fintech humming in the background.

Brazil keeps mistaking spectacle for justice. The state stages police massacres in the favelas — more than 100 bodies lined up as proof of “toughness.” But not a single bullet can reach the accountants who move R$ 46 billion through phantom fuel companies or the influencers who dress crime in denim and prayer.

The truth is brutal: no massacre will fix what only investigation, transparency, and political courage can.
Until the state dares to follow the money — not the bodies — the same machine will keep grinding: the war on the poor financing the luxury of the powerful.

Crime has changed costume; the police have not changed script.