Brazil: Gesulino Castro and the Impunity of the Latifundium Crimes
We share an unofficial translation of some extracts of the article found in Resistência Camponesa.
In August 2025, the defense of Gesulino César Travagine Castro, the head of the goons in Rondônia, filed an appeal against a previous decision by the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) that upheld his conviction of over 35 years in prison for the crime of homicide in organizing the Buritis Massacre, which resulted in the murder of six people in 2012. However, the Special Court of the STJ will review the defense’s appeal in a virtual session scheduled for September 2025.
Thirteen years have passed since this and many other heinous crimes were committed in the service of big landlords. The corrupt judicial system of the State of Rondônia has carried out hundreds of legal maneuvers together with Gesulino’s lawyers and the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Rondônia, which has allowed the sentence to be postponed for over a decade and kept him free to continue committing crimes.
Gesulino is a confessed perpetrator of the massacre. He meticulously planned the ambush against cattle buyers and, as he himself stated, gave the order to his band of goons to approach the occupants of a vehicle. After the crime, the weapons (12 gauge shotguns, revolvers, pistols, and a bulletproof vest) were thrown into a river and later found by the Fire Department.
Gesulino’s trajectory of impunity coincides with the moment he was chosen as head of the goons at the service of big landlords in the Buritis region. It also coincides with the command of the Military Police in the Buritis district exercised by Régis Braguin, who ordered an attempted massacre against peasants.
The newspaper Resistência Camponesa has published Gesulino’s police record, which documents numerous crimes committed in recent years, including the murders of land rights activists in the Rio Crespo and Cujubim regions. In April 2025, Gesulino and his accomplice Diógenes, who also has an extensive criminal history, forcibly evicted peasant families from the revolutionary area of Gedeon José Duque and have been attacking families in the revolutionary areas of Valdiro Chagas and Gonzalo 1 and 2, committing abuses, torture, attempted homicides, humiliations, threats, destruction of crops and homes, arson, and acting in a paramilitary manner in support of the Battalion of Special Police Operations on August 8.
Diógenes is usually the one who acts directly, while Gesulino keeps a low profile, hiding his face to maintain his image as a “good guy,” especially on social media. However, since April, Gesulino has been personally managing his gang and was recently seen using his own vehicle to commit arson.
In April 2025, Gesulino also set fire to the area after expelling families from the Gedeon Duque Area with his gang of goons.
Source: Resistência Camponesa
On April, 2025 he also set fire to an area after expelling families of the Area Gedeon Duque with his gang of goons.
Before and after expelling the families from the Area Gedeon Duque, 2024 and 2025 respectively. Source: Resistência Camponesa
Images from September 1. Area completely burnt. Source: Resistência Camponesa
In his publications on social media, Gesulino tries to taunt the peasants of the Valdiro Chagas Area and celebrates the crimes against the area.
The 13 years of impunity are only possible due to the complicity of a corrupt judicial system, which has allowed him to remain free. The poor peasants of Rondônia doubt that the sentence will be enforced immediately, even if it is confirmed by the STJ, due to the suspicion of extrajudicial actions by the judicial system and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Gesulino has committed numerous crimes, including murders, and continues to act with impunity. Peasants denounce that he is trying to repeat in the areas of Gedeon Duque, Valdiro Chagas, and Gonzalo 1 and 2, what he already did in the Bacuri area, where he killed a peasant leader and attempted to kill another. Gesulino has been rewarded with a portion of the land stolen from peasants for his services to the local big landlord and has used his money to launder the money obtained as goon.
Gesulino boasts of having conquered everything he has through hard work, but it is suspected that his “work” refers to his activity as a goon at the service of the big landlord and logger Chaules Pozzebon, who was sentenced to 99 years in prison for being one of Brazil’s largest deforesters. Gesulino’s list of crimes is extensive and is related to Colonel Régis Braguin of the Military Police, with whom he is part of an extermination group in the service of big landlords.
