Brazil: Where the Crooks Can’t Go

There is a certain element of U.S. society that has always had a tender spot in its heart for Brazil—the crooks who go flying down to Rio to escape the law. Alone among hemisphere nations, Brazil has long refused to sign an extradition treaty with Washington, preferring to let bygones be gone. No one knows how many U.S. criminals have fled over the years, but they numbered in the hundreds.

Among the big-leaguers, Lowell Birrell (who embezzled $14 million), Edward Gilbert (about $2,000,000) and Earl Belle ($800,000) have all voluntarily returned to the U.S. to face the music, although they had done well enough in Brazil as entrepreneurs or “consultants.” Only major operator who remains is Ben-Jack Cage, wanted for embezzling $100,000 from his Texas insurance company. In Brazil he made his mark trying to detonate a land boom in the remote Mato Grosso, unloading 350-per-acre land for $2 to $10 an acre. Now it appears that he and anyone else the U.S. wants may be coming home. Last week, after 17 years of formal negotiation, the U.S. and Brazil exchanged extradition agreements, effective Dec. 17. Says a U.S. embassy official in Rio: “Any criminal who flees to Brazil would be plain stupid.”