A Vine in the Blood

by Leighton Gage

  People trust the game because, when it comes to payouts at least, the mobsters who run it are scrupulously honest. They have to be. The continued success of their business depends on it.

  And they are, indeed, the major patrons of Brazil’s great samba schools, something they have long regarded as a social obligation.

  The game’s closest equivalent, in the United States, is the “numbers racket”, also referred to as the “policy racket”.

  I have treated the two felons in Chapter Fifteen (the scene where Silva and his men raid the warehouse and liberate a Lear’s Macaw) rather lightheartedly, but the crime of animal smuggling is far from a joke. It is, in fact, one of the earth’s more serious environmental problems.

  After habitat loss, animal smuggling is the biggest reason why one-third of the world’s wildlife is in danger of extinction. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the illicit trade in animals ranks just behind the illicit trade in drugs and firearms. No one knows how many animals are stolen from Brazil’s forests each year, but it is thought to be in the tens of millions.

  Finally, the Lear’s Macaw is as rare as I have described it. They are to be found in captivity in various places around the world, but the Brazilian government has never issued an export license for a single one.