Some of the suspects arrested for setting fire to sugarcane fields in Sao Paulo state told police they are linked to an organized crime gang and were retaliating for anti-crime actions by the government, a senior state official said on Tuesday.
The fires that started last week spread rapidly through parched fields during the weekend, at the peak of the country's dry season, and destroyed thousands of hectares of sugarcane plantations, sending up clouds of smoke that cloaked nearby cities.
State Agriculture Secretary Guilherme Piai told Reuters that fires started at different locations at the same time, which indicated that they were not accidental.
The government suspects that one of Brazil's largest crime gangs, Primeiro Comando da Capital — commonly known as PCC — was behind the fires, seeking to retaliate against measures to combat the criminal trade in adulterated fuels.
"We don't really know the motivation, but some said they were linked to PCC. Others naively wanted to take revenge against agribusiness, which is the driving force of Brazil's economy," Piai said.
Organized crime has bought bankrupt fuel plants and hundreds of gas stations, he said, adding that the fires could be a way of retaliating against government actions combating organized crime.
PCC was set up in 1993 by inmates at a maximum security prison in Sao Paulo and moved from drug trafficking to become Brazil's most powerful and feared criminal gang.
Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro earlier described the fires in sugarcane fields as criminal, but he gave no details.
More than 2,100 fires blazed in sugarcane fields, resulting in the burning of 59,000 hectares (146,000 acres) of sugarcane areas and crop regrowth areas. Sao Paulo accounts for about half of Brazil's sugarcane planting.
The fires caused losses estimated at $63.59 million (350 million reais), according to the Organization of Cane Producers Associations, Orplana.
State Governor Tarcisio de Freitas estimated the overall losses in damage to crops and other properties and activities at more than 1 billion reais.
Since Thursday, four men have been arrested after being caught in possession of containers of gasoline to set fields on fire, Freitas said. On Tuesday, police reported the arrests of two more men caught on security cameras setting fire to vegetation.
A federal prosecutor investigating the fires, Luis Fernando Rocha, said that so far there was no proof of coordinated arson.
"It was criminal. But so far we don't have elements to say that this was organized crime," he said.
